
Class ____L"B. |Aei 
Book AS 



Ibeatb's pefcaaoaical Xibrarp — 16 

APPERCEPTION 
H flDonograpb 

ON 

PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY 

BY 

Dr. KARL LANGE 

DIRECTOR OF THE HIGHER BURGHER-SCHOOE, PLATJEN, GeR. 



Translated and presented to American Teachers by the 
following-named members of the herbart club : 

ELMER E. BROWN, CHARLES DE GARMO, MRS. EUDORA HAILMANN, 

FLORENCE HALL, GEORGE F. JAMES, L. R. KLEMM, OSSIAN 

H. LANG, HERMAN T. LUKENS, CHARLES P. MC MURRY, 

FRANK MC MURRY, THEO. B. NOSS, LEVI L. 

SEELEY, MARGARET K. SMITH. 

EDITED BY 

CHARLES DE GARMO 



BOSTON, U. S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1903 



Copyright, 1893, 
Charles De Garmo 8 



PRINTED IN 

UNITED STATES 

OF AMERICA 






TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAKT I. 

Page 

The Doctrine of Appeeception — A Psychological In- 
vestigation : 

1. Nature and Kinds of Apperception 1 

2. Conditions of Apperception „ 42 

3. Significance of Apperception in the Spiritual Develop- 

ment of Man 53 

PART II. 

The Theory oe Apperception in its Application to Ped- 
agogy "• . . . 103 

1. The Object that is Apperceived (Choice and Arrange- 

ment of the Subject-matter of Education) . . . 109 

2. The Subject that Apperceives (Investigation, Extension 

and Utilization of the Child's Experience) . . .151 

3. The Adequate Union of these two Factors in Instruc- 

tion (Methods of Instruction) 200 

PAKT III. 

History oe the Term Apperception. 

1. Leibnitz 246 

2. Kant 250 

3. Herbart 255 

4. Lazarus 263 

5. Steinthal . . . .268 

6. Non-Herbartian Psychologists . . . . . 272 

7. Wundt 275 

iii 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



If we inquire into the genesis of our present educational ideals, 
we shall find that they take their rise in the hearts of a few great 
men. Comenius, Eousseau, and Pestalozzi, to whom much that is 
excellent in our American schools to-day can be traced, were men 
who wrote and taught because they saw a great need, because their 
intense emotional natures were stirred to the depths at the sight 
of children growing up in ignorance or wasting the precious time 
of youth in empty verbalism. Like all great reformers, they were 
governed more by their feelings and instincts than by the scientific 
spirit, which analyzes everything, never taking a step not warranted 
by logical deduction. Logic is too cold and slow for a man whose 
heart is on fire with some plan for the regeneration of society. 
The initial impulses of our educational advance have been given 
by men of this type. Usually they have cared but little, even in 
the later years of their activity, for putting their ideas into scientific 
form. Where they have done so, however, it is evident that they 
have merely adopted the primitive psychological conceptions current 
among the people. Early attempts to reduce these psychological 
notions to a system led to the theory of disparate or independent 
" faculties," out of which at a later period phrenology naturally 
grew. Antiquated as these crude psychological notions may seem 
to us, they have nevertheless left a deep, persistent impression 
upon our whole system of educational ideas. They are doubtless 
responsible for our faith in what we call formal culture, or disci- 
pline of the mind, through studies largely lacking in knowledge 
content ; to them must be ascribed the distinction between forming 
and informing studies ; also the attempts to train these so-called 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

" faculties," like perception, memory, imagination, reason, will, by 
means of specific subject-matter and methods of instruction. 
Doubtless even so primitive a system has done good service, for 
any psychology of education is better than none. 

But it now seems evident that if we are to make further progress 
in education we must add to this initial impulse (for which the 
world can never be too grateful) something of the scientific spirit 
of the age in which we live. A number of facts point to this con- 
clusion. In the first place, the curriculum of studies is no longer 
the simple thing it was in Pestalozzi's time. Study after study 
has been added in obedience to some popular demand or because 
of the esoteric interest of the schoolmaster. What now constitutes 
our curriculum is a chaos of isolated subjects, which are allowed, 
not from any demonstrated psychological need, but because of 
some popular or professional demand. The only proper way 
to determine which shall be eliminated, which abridged, is to 
submit the whole to a thorough investigation according to the 
well-developed psychology of the present time, since the primitive 
systems are wholly inadequate to the task. Such an investigation 
will necessarily take into consideration the educational value of 
each subject, when it has received the best possible coordination 
with other branches ; it will consider the natural interests of the 
child, his power of comprehension, the effect of his present acquire- 
ments, disposition, and leading purposes upon his acquisition of 
new knowledge, for all of these things will help to decide how the 
curriculum shall be made up. This is a problem not to be solved 
by efforts aroused merely by emotion or instinct, for the problem is 
essentially scientific in its nature. 

We meet this same need for the scientific application of psychol- 
ogy to education in another direction. As long as only the well- 
to-do classes were educated, there were many influences to which 
we could appeal to obtain the desired results. Were the child 
inclined to evade our instruction in order to follow his own devices, 
we might appeal to his ambition, to emulation, to pride, to shame, 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

to regard for the reputation of family, and the like ; but when the 
streets, the mines, the factories, the tenement districts, send their 
children to school, these indirect means of securing attention to 
study are mostly futile. We stand face to face with naked igno- 
rance and indifference, and must make our impression in a few 
short years or suffer defeat. We can no longer rely on indirect 
means for arousing the mind to educational effort, but must con- 
trive to awaken a deep, permanent, and growing interest in the 
acquisition and possession of knowledge itself. This is a psycho- 
logical problem involving the child's acquirements, his natural 
instincts and interests, the content of the studies, together with an 
investigation into the time, order, and manner of presenting them. 
It appears self-evident, therefore, that to the primal inspiration for 
the uplifting of humanity, we must now add the intelligent direc- 
tion of psychological science. 

While our educational leaders were gathering their psychological 
ideas from the fireside, so to speak, philosophy and scientific 
psychology were being wrought out in the closet. The influence 
of the scientific spirit upon educational doctrines was consequently 
but slight. There was, however, one of the leading philosophers, 
John Frederick Herbart, who, foreseeing the need that education 
would have of scientific treatment from the standpoint of psychol- 
ogy, devoted much of his time to the elaboration of a rational 
system of pedagogy. Under the influence of his thought, a vigorous 
school of educational thinkers has arisen in Germany who are 
known collectively as Herbartians, but who represent within the 
school somewhat widely varying theories. Among the number, 
Dr. Lange , has perhaps exhibited the happiest combination of 
popular presentation and scientific insight. His book will interest 
the simplest and instruct the wisest; for, being on the one side 
concrete .and readable, it is on the other founded on painstaking 
research, not only in Herbartian, but also in other modern scientific 
psychology. A prominent merit of Lange is that he shows us the 
lines along which we must work in order to reach a solution of 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

educational problems requiring this new element of psychology 
scientifically developed. Not only does he point the way, but he 
pursues it. He leads us into a fundamental study of the nature, 
kinds, conditions, and significance of apperception ; he shows what 
influence it is to have upon the choice and arrangement of the 
subject-matter of education ; how we can investigate, extend, and 
utilize the child's store of experience, and how to bring about an 
adequate union between the growing mind , of the child and the 
subject-matter of instruction through the development of the best 
methods of teaching; finally, in the Third Part he gives Us a 
masterly survey of the history of the term as explained by Leibnitz, 
Kant, Herbart, Lazarus, Steinthal, and Wundt. One lays down 
the book, after reading this chapter, with the reflection, that if 
these men have not said the last word upon apperception, it is still 
much to have said the first. 

Believing that this book above all others is best adapted to intro- 
duce the young teacher into that realm of educational thought in 
which the results of modern psychology must henceforth be an 
indispensable factor, the members of the newly formed Herbart 
Club collectively offer this translation to their fellow teachers. 

CHARLES DE GARMO. 

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, PA., Jail. 1st, 1893. 



PART I. 
THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. 



I. Nature and Kinds of Apperception. 

Man enters life as a stranger ; he knows nothing of the 
world that receives him : it is to him a new, unknown 
country, which he must explore, which he must conquer. 
How is this to be done ? Nature assails his senses with a 
thousand allurements ; she sends the rays of light that she 
may open his eyes to the innumerable things of the outer 
world, she knocks upon the door of the human spirit with 
excitations of tone and touch and temperature and all the 
other stimulations of the sensitive nerves, desiring admis- 
sion. The soul answers these stimuli with sensations, with 
ideas ; it masters the outer world by perceiving it. 

But this is not brought about by a mere passive reception 
of outer impressions, as men were once perhaps inclined to 
think, for the soul is not a tablet upon which the outer 
world engraves its messages, not a mirror in which things 
are reflected, and ideas are not mere images of things. 1 On 
the contrary, in the moment of perception, the mind is 

1 This is a reference to John Locke, who represents the soul as a Tabula 
Rasa on which experience writes its messages. See Book II., Chap. I., of 
Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 



2 APPERCEPTION. 

thoroughly active, since it transforms a physiological occa- 
sion into a psychical result : or, in other words, since upon 
occasion of a nerve-activity it responds with an action whose 
content is entirely different. What it is that the outer world 
effects in the mind, what activity in harmony with its own 
nature the mind manifests in consequence of a certain sense 
excitation, can be seen in the sensations that come imme- 
diately into consciousness. Therefore, strictly speaking, 
these sensations do not tell us how the things of the outer 
world really are, but how they appear to us. We think, in- 
deed, to recognize the true nature of things through our 
perceptions, because things are the occasion of our percep- 
tions ; but what we call the qualities and activities of things 
are only our sensations arising from the nerve excitations 
caused by these outer objects. 1 

Yet all that we perceive is not the mere appearance ; the 
outer world is not the bare product of our perception. For, 
though the mind creates its ideas in consequence of its own 
nature, it does not do so without corresponding outer stim- 
ulus. That things are external to us, that they affect 
us according to certain laws, and occasion in the soul speci- 
fic reactions corresponding to their qualities, that we can 
make them serviceable to our wills according to those laws, 
— to all this our perceptions testify beyond a doubt. Yet, 
for all that, they do not reveal the actual nature of things. 
Our perceptions through their rich variety teach us to be at 

1 For example : All that a bell does when it rings is to set the air vi- 
brating. This is not sound as we experience it, but the vibrations come 
to the ear and stimulate the auditory nerve. This nerve excitation is 
conducted to the brain, and the mind itself responds in what we call 
the sensation sound, which must be considered as something quite differ- 
ent from the vibrations of air set up by the bell. The same relations exist 
between the vibrations of ether, which the physicist can measure, and 
the resulting sensation that we call light. — [Ed.] 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 6 

home in the world and to master it ; " but no created spirit 
■ever penetrates to the heart of nature." 

Thus, in general, we master the outer world through our 
perceptions, and only through them ; yet in their very na- 
ture there lies at the same time an important limit for all 
knowing. Just because the perceiving mind does not pas- 
sively receive external things or their images, because nothing 
foreign can press in upon it or be communicated immediately 
to it, but because it relates itself actively to all outer excita- 
tions and responds to them in its own way, therefore, in a 
strict sense, our perceptions have only relative truth and 
validity. 

This activity of the perceiving mind, however, explains 
another important fact. It is a well known experience that 
one and the same object seldom occasions precisely similar 
perceptions in the minds of different people. Of the same 
landscape the poet's image would differ greatly from that of 
the botanist, the painter's from that of the geologist or the 
farmer, the stranger's from that of him who calls it home. 
In the same way, one and the same speech is often under- 
stood in as many different ways as there are hearers. What 
does not the child see in his toys, the devout mind in the 
objects of its devotions ! What does not the experienced 
reader of human nature see in the wrinkles and folds, the 
wilted -and weather-beaten features, of a human face ! 
How much do the gestures, the play of features, the glowing 
or fading fire of the eye, tell him of the battles and storms 
of the soul ! And the artist, does he not perceive in a work 
of art a thousand things that escape the closest attention of 
the ordinary observer? Has not each of us the sharpest 
kind of an eye for the objects with which our calling makes 
us best acquainted ? In the voices of nature the youthful 
lover of birds, like man in the state of nature, hears the 



4 APPERCEPTION. 

emotional and volitional utterances of related beings, while 
the Malay says of his bamboo forests, from whose branches 
the wind entices the most manifold tones : ' ' The forest organ 
plays for each his favorite tune." 

We see, therefore, that when two persons perceive the 
same thing their perceptions are not precisely alike. There 
are as many different ideas of one and the same thing as 
there are observers. Whence this variation in apprehen- 
sion, with otherwise similar sense apparatus? Were we in 
perception chiefly passive, could the things of the outer 
world impress themselves immediately upon our minds and 
thus stamp their nature upon it, they would necessarily 
always leave behind the same ideas, so that a variety of 
apprehension would be impossible and inexplicable. The 
fact, however, that every observer contributes something to 
the sensation, and thus alters and enriches it, speaks unmis- 
takably for the activity of the mind, which, upon occasion 
of sense-excitations, must perform the main office and create 
the perception in accordance with that which occasions it. 
This fact points to an activity the strength of which depends 
essentially upon the sum and the kinds of psychical products 
already present ; for precisely those spiritual elements that 
accompany the real content of the sensation allow us to con- 
clude as to the causes to which the perception owes its rapid 
assimilation as well as its peculiar coloring. The mind 
apprehends the things of the outer world with the assistance 
of what it has already experienced, felt, learned, and 
digested. And so it comes about that with nearly all new 
perceptions the former content of our minds makes itself 
felt, so that we become conscious of more than that which 
the objects themselves furnish us, seeing the latter through- 
out in the light of similar ideas already present in the mind. 

The process of perception must not therefore be regarded 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 5 

as such a simple matter as superficial observation might 
seem to indicate. It is not merely becoming conscious of 
nerve-excitations . 

In order that a sensation may arise, there is, as a rule, a 
fusion or union of its content with similar ideas and feelings. 
With the assistance of the latter, the sensation is held in 
consciousness, elevated into greater clearness, properly re- 
lated to the remaining fields of thought, and so truly as- 
similated. 

We call this second act, in distinction from that of sim- 
ple perception or the reception of a sensation, appercep- 
tion, or mental assimilation. This is a psychical process 
which has a validity beyond mere subjective perception, and 
is of the greatest significance for all knowledge, yes, even 
for our whole spiritual life. 1 Let us see therefore, the laws 
according to which this process is completed. 

1 The inquiring mind is likely to ask at this point : Is it possible to 
have perception without apperception? We may say in general that 
knowledge is necessary for the assimilation of knowledge, and this is the 
side of apperception of most importance to us as teachers, but some are 
curious to know how, according to this, knowledge gets a start. The au- 
thor has shown at the beginning that a spontaneous activity on the part 
of the soul in accordance with its own nature must be presupposed in 
order that we may have any experience at all. In the case of the bell, 
for instance, the vibrations of the air are contributed by the object, but 
the mental response that we know as sound comes from the mind itself. 
In this way it is possible for a knowledge of sounds to start, without there 
having been any previous experience of sounds to serve as interpreting 
ideas. We have thus in distinction from the apperception in which 
knowledge is involved a primary apperception, without which we should 
never know anything. As a rule, Herbartian writers emphasize the cog- 
nitive phases of apperception, in which new knowledge is assimilated by 
the products of our former experience, in the form of knowledge, feelings, 
purposes, interests, etc., partly because these are the phases of the subject 
of practical importance to pedagogy, and partly from the implications of 
the Herbartian system of psychology. A careful study of the historical 
sketch at the close of the volume will reveal to the reader the attitude of 
the various thinkers in respect to this topic. — [Ed.] 



b APPERCEPTION. 

Suppose we have the rare phenomenon of an eclipse of 
the sun. Rays of light of varying strength come from the 
lighted part of the sun's disk, and fall upon the retina of 
the eye. A physical process arising outside of the body 
affects at once our nerves of sight. Hereby the peripheral 
ends of these nerves are stimulated to an activity which 
is conducted as a nerve-excitation to the central ends of the 
nerves and there causes a specific change (excitation of 
the ganglion cells) , which is characterized as the release of 
the nerve-excitement. This is a physiological process, which 
in time and cause seems bound up with the physical one, but 
which is in its nature entirely distinguished from it. To these 
external processes, and conditioned and occasioned by them, 
is now added a pure inner activity, which seems to have 
nothing in common either with vibrations of ether or with 
nerve currents ; it is the reaction of the soul, a sight-sensa- 
tion. This is the psychical act with which the perception 
closes. We naturally receive from the continually chang- 
ing disk a variety of sensations, which, united and related 
to the same object, give us a picture of the eclipse of the 
sun ; this is a subjective perception. 1 

Only a new-born infant, in so far as it may be supposed 
to see at all, could stop at this stage in the perception of 
the outer impression. During the first months of life a 
human being would perceive this rare celestial phenomenon 
with dullness and indifference, and without understanding 
or interest. He will at this stage have nothing to add to 
the given impression ; he will indeed not be aware of all 
that is to be seen, so that he can take away no particularly 

1 A perception in this sense of the term does not differ from a sensation,, 
except perhaps in complexity. We usually regard the sensation as the 
simplest psychical reaction against the nerve-current caused hy a phys- 
ical stimulus. — [Ed.] 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 7 

clear and sharp image of the object. Where the soul has 
gained but little content, it perceives only " according to its 
original nature," that is, dimly and weakly. 

It is very different with the adult. He gains from the 
same phenomenon of nature a far richer, sharper, and 
clearer perception. We notice not only the gradual eclipse 
of the sun, but we recognize also its cause. We see a dark 
disk enter the sun's field of light, and say to ourselves that 
this is the unilluminatecl side of the moon, which in its 
passage around the earth, is now passing between us and 
the sun, and whose cone of shadow hides from us the star of 
day. To this we add the comforting certainty, that all this 
has to do with right things, that the eclipse is proceeding- 
according to known and fixed laws — a thought that goes 
far to remove a large part of the emotion-stirring power of 
this unusual occurrence. 

Whence comes this perception, so rich in content and clear 
in outline? It has evidently arisen under the influence of 
the related thought content, with which we have met the 
outer impressions, and under the influence of the observa- 
tions and knowledge that we have formerly gained through 
instruction, reading, and personal observation of the heavenly 
bodies and their movements. It was with the help of what 
we already knew of this keenly expected natural event, and 
of similar reproduced ideas, that we created this new percep- 
tion and placed it in an orderly position in the organism of our 
knowledge, so that it now forms a clear and definite part 
of the same. We apperceived it. Not unessential is the 
service rendered by the will, which is here led by intellectual 
feelings. As we were viewing the astronomical event with 
close attention, it not only correctly adjusted the sense 
organs for the observation, bnt it removed disturbing ideas 
as far as possible from consciousness and admitted only such 



8 APPERCEPTION. 

as were favorable for the assimilation of the new. This was 
accompanied by a corresponding physical effort, viz., that of 
tension, which made itself felt in the sensation. At the 
moment of successful apperception, as would appear from 
Wundt's investigations, the sensory nerve-current was trans- 
ferred from the central ends of the nerves to a region lying in 
the front part of the large brain, which is reckoned to be the 
apperception center. From here the excitation was partly 
directed back to the sensory centers, whereby there was a 
strengthening of the perception, and partly conducted further 
to the muscles of the eye, in which certain feelings of ten- 
sion arose. 

Reviewing now the parts of the process to be observed in 
the act of perception, we find an extraordinary number of 
them : sense and motor stimuli, sensations of sight and mus- 
cles, reproduced ideas, activities of feeling and will — all 
these are exercised in the production of an apparently simple 
result without our being conscious of all the actions simulta- 
neously. There are, however, two chief activities to be dis- 
tinguished in the whole process. We perceive in the eclipse, 
first, just what the original constitution of our minds neces- 
sitates, even if they were no more developed than the mind 
of the infant. In this way a perception arises. But through 
the ideas and skill obtained by former experience, we observe 
much that remains hidden to the inexperienced, and we add 
to the subjective perception numerous psychical elements 
from our well- stored minds, which were not immediately given 
in the observation. The mind apprehends outer impressions 
in accordance with its wealth of knowledge gained through 
former activity. The process of perception becomes one 
of apperception. 

The fact that the act of apperception is accomplished 
under the influence of the present knowledge store of the 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 9 

mind, makes it comprehensible how one and the same 
natural event can find such different interpretations. What 
we observe with such quiet self-possession, and even ele- 
vation of feeling, has always been a cause of horror and 
powerful fear with savages and other primitive peoples. 
They see the sun threatened by demons who would rob it of 
light, by dangerous monsters who would devour it. These 
ideas are perhaps most immediate to those whose existence 
is filled with unceasing struggle against hostile neighbors 
and powerful beasts of prey. And therefore, because the 
eclipse appears to them as a gigantic war of worlds, as a fatal 
event, threatening to destroy even themselves, it is natural 
that their minds should be moved by the most powerful emo- 
tions. When, however, the idea of the heavenly bodies and 
their ceaseless change has gained a fixed place and meaning 
in the religious system of a people, when the sun is adored as 
a sublime God of Light, who rules the world and the fate of 
man, then this celestial phenomenon must, in accordance 
with ruling ideas, be apperceived as a religious event. 
Once when the Medes and Lydians stood opposed, ready to 
fight a bloody battle, the heavens suddenly darkened and 
the. sun lost its light. Then they recognized that their 
gods, Ormuzd and Mithras, were angry at their deeds ; 
they thereupon lowered their weapons, and concluded a peace 
with each other. 

In the case of the observation described, we saw that the 
acts of perception and apperception, however clearly to be 
distinguished according to their nature, were not completed 
indifferent times, as if the second, perhaps, followed the first 
in noticeable time-distinction. On the contrary the act of 
perception occurred simultaneously with that of apperception 
and essentially under its influence. The question arises 
whether this is always so, whether apperception always ac- 



10 APPERCEPTION. 

companies perception. We will test the question with a 
further example. 

In the theater at Corinth the assembled multitudes listened 
to the first drama that had been played before them. What 
the furies, the dreadful spirits of revenge, had revealed in 
terrible song and dance had moved all hearts, and a sol- 
emn, secret dread rested upon every mind. Suddenly in 
the midst of the deep stillness, there rang out the words : 

See there! see there! Timotheus, 
The Cranes, the Cranes of Ibycus ! 1 

Had these words been uttered at another place and before 
people who knew nothing of Ibycus and his sad fate, it is 
probable that they would have passed quickly out of con- 
sciousness without leaving any deep impression behind. 
The people could have made nothing out of the strange cry, 
and would have paid as little attention to the two men as to 
the passing cranes. The impression, like many other fleet- 
ing, indifferent ones, would have remained as something 
isolated and external, a mere perception easy to be forgot- 
ten. But it was otherwise in the theater at Corinth with 
the assembled people. Here, the name of the lamented 
singer fixed the attention upon the few, and in themselves 
innocent, words of the murderer, so that they did not pass 
by unheeded. Here, the unwary exclamation found a 
loud echo in the hearts of the hearers. True, they are at 

1 The story of the Cranes of Ibycus is as follows : "While traveling in the 
neighborhood of Corinth, the poet Ibycus was waylaid and mortally 
wounded by robbers. As he lay dying on the ground he saw a flock of 
cranes flying overhead, and called upon them to avenge his death. The 
murderers betook themselves to Corinth, and soon after, while sitting in 
the theater, saw the cranes hovering above. One of them either in alarm 
or jest, ejaculated : " Behold the avengers of Ibycus," and gave the clue to 
the detection of the crime. The phrase, The Cranes of Ibycus, passed into 
a proverb among the Greeks. — Ency. Brit. 



THE THEOEY OF APPERCEPTION. 11 

first led only by an obscure feeling, a premonition. They 
do not yet know what these words signify. What should 
these two strangers have to do with Ibycus ; — they, the 
rough men, with the cultured poet? How does it happen 
they speak of his cranes? Such and similar thoughts 
prevent the immediate comprehension of the unusual words. 
Hence the poet with his psychological tact allows a few 
moments to pass, before the hearers understand. At first 
the flock of passing cranes claim the senses of the observers. 
Then the words about the Cranes of Ibycus are carried — 
even if very soon — in wide circles to the lowest seats, and 
awaken anew the old song. And now the excited multitude 
breaks out in queries and suspicions : " Ibycus, whom we 
bemoan? The man slain by the hand of a murderer? 
What ails this man? What can he mean? What is the 
meaning of this flight of cranes?" 1 

Numerous ideas are now called up by the new perception 
and placed in relation to it. All the thoughts are collected, 
that is, those which can serve to give significance and exten- 
sion to the perception. And in fact, of all the ideas called 
to consciousness, two groups soon appear that are able to 
contribute to an understanding of the obscure fact of the 
observation. They are, first, vivid ideas of the ruthless 
murder of the poet, united with feelings of deep sorrow 
and moral indignation, accompanied by the desire to find 
the murderer, and the resolution to attend to every suspi- 
cious circumstance. Awakened from its light slumber by the 
name of the murdered man, this group of ideas breaks forth 
with new power and lends the attentive will a special en- 



1 2)er 3bt)lu§, ben tmr betoemen ? 
2)en etne 9Jiorbert)anb erf dj tug ? 
2Ba§ ift'S mtt bem, toa§ femn ex metnen ? 
2Ca§ iff § mit biefem ^remtcfoug ? — Schiller. 



12 APPERCEPTION. 

ergy and endurance. In the second place, all the earnest 
thoughts and feelings spring up, which the song of the 
spirits of revenge has awakened in the hearers : the fixed 
certainty that nothing evil remains undiscovered and una- 
venged, the feeling of solemn awe before the just, almighty, 
and omnipresent rule of the gods. Hence arises the 
thought : What if the gods in confirmation of the message 
of the furies have produced the murderer ? What if he has 
involuntarily betrayed himself through thinking aloud? 
Strange indeed are the ways of celestials. Why should 
they, indeed, not employ cranes for the discovery of the 
murderer ? 

' ' Now with the speed of lightning there flies through all 
hearts the warning thought : Attend ! This is the power of 
the furies ! They avenge the murdered poet ! The mur- 
derer reveals himself ! " 1 

The murderers are seized, they grow pale and can give 
no satisfactory explanation, so that men read their wicked 
deed in their unsteady looks and distorted features ; that 
single thoughtless exclamation has become the proof of 
their guilt. Apperception rapidly accompanies the percep- 
tion of the outer events, which close with the confession of 
the evil doers. 

Evidently in the present case perception and appercep- 
tion are not completed simultaneously, but the mental as- 
similation follows after an appreciable time. One may, in- 
deed, ascribe to apperception the apprehension of the sounds 
uttered by the murderer as words and sentences, in so far 



1 Unb afynenb ftiegt'S mit Slices 

®urtf) atfe Bergen : (Sebet ad)t ! 

SDa§ ift ber (£utnemben 9Jta$t ! 

5£)er fromme £H<f)ter ttrirb gerodjen, 

2>er 9ttorber bietet felbft fief) bar. — Schiller. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 13 

as the observers recognize these as familiar sounds and 
words representing ideas of certain things, and in so far 
as they have united these mental products into a judgment. 
However, this apprehension is so meager and indefinite, so 
external and isolated, that, in comparison with the later 
deeper comprehension, they may well be termed perceptions. 
At any rate they are further apperceived by the aid of pres- 
ent ideas, and only after this is done do they attain the 
proper content and adequate clearness. There may conse- 
quently be perceptions that are not immediately assimilated ; 
not every perception is at the same time an apperception in 
the cognitive sense of the term. Desultory talk sleeps in 
deaf ears. The young retain many a word, many a sen- 
tence purely mechanically, without understanding. It may 
be years after, that the meaning of a form of speech occurs 
to us. Then we recognize and understand a perception that 
to our childish mind appeared a sphinx's riddle. And even 
to the adult, there come occasionally words and sentences, 
perceptions, or thoughts so strange and rare, that he knows 
not at first what to make of them, and catches himself, per- 
haps, asking with curiosity, what sense or significance these 
new things may contain for him. 1 

We undoubtedly have perceptions that are never apper- 
ceived. In this list we shall find the earliest, isolated sensa- 
tions of the child ; those perceptions that we do not know 
what to do with ; and such as on account of flagging atten- 



1 Lotze in his Psychology narrates the following interesting occurrence : 
An observer had tried the effect of a narcotic upon himself, for scientific 
purpose's. When he awoke from his stupor, he recognized the persons 
present in the room, hut knew not what to make of himself. Only after 
his glance had rested on the mirror opposite did he recognize himself. 
Only at this point, in the first instant of recognition, did perception be- 
come apperception. 



14 APPERCEPTION. 

tion or of transient character sink rapidly under the threshold 
of consciousness. 1 Yet these form only the exceptions. 

In most cases — the more surely, the richer the mental life 
is — perception is accompanied by apperception. Whether 
immediately or after a shorter or longer period of time, de- 
pends essentially upon the kind and intensity of the repro- 
duced ideas that come into relation to the perception. If we 
repeat a perception often experienced, as when, for example, 
we recognize a friend, a street, a tree ; identify a sound or 
the tone of a voice as well known, or read what is written or 
printed, then the perception fuses at once with the nearly 
identical or very similar ideas that meet it in consciousness. 
Apperception moves here in known and easy roads, sup- 
ported by established functional disposition of the nerves 
of sense. Even where a new perception enters and is 
recognized as belonging to known conceptions and catego- 
ries, as when a botanist at the first glance classifies a plant 
seen for the first time, or a judge classifies a punishable 
offence under a certain paragraph of the law, the process of 
apperception goes on lightly and without delay. It proceeds 
most rapidly when the new idea does not need to recall 
similar old ideas, but when these already stand high and 
clear in consciousness as ruling ideas. 2 Apperceiving notions 

1 This is supported by a citation from Jean Paul Richter : " Goethe 
apprehends everything upon a journey ; I nothing at all. With me every- 
thing dissolves like a dream. I travel through cities without seeing any- 
thing ; I am stirred only by beautiful regions. I know and see indeed all the 
particulars of life ; but I inquire nothing about them and forget them." 

2 To the lad who, with ghost-stories in his head and fear in his heart, 
hastens homeward over the barren moorland at night, the harmless occur- 
rences about him become in a trice the most terrifying specters. [This 
suggests the story of Tchabod Crane, by Irving.] In the rustling leaves he 
hears the " graveyard ghost"; the rattling of the reeds is the " unholy 
spinner"; in the gurgle of the water at his feet he hears the melody of 
the "false fiddler"; before him he sees clearly " the unhappy woman," 
lamenting over her poor lost soul ; and shuddering he hurries homeward. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 15 

stand here, as Lazarus remarks, "like armed men in the 
strongholds of consciousness ready to hurl themselves upon 
everything that appears at the portals of the senses, overcom- 
ing and making it serviceable to themselves." 1 In all these 
cases we are hardly conscious of apperception as a specific 
activity. We ascribe to the object of perception what has 
been added to it by our own minds. We think we merely 
perceive, when we have already assimilated. Only in excep- 
tional cases (as where we recognize beloved friends) is this 
sort of apperception attended by any excitement of strong 
feeling. Apperception seems to proceed of itself, without 
our express will, and not seldom even against our will. 
It may therefore be regarded as passive apperception : not, 
however, in the sense that the soul is passive, for it is 
active throughout. This characterization, borrowed from 
Wundt, merely indicates that the process of apperception 
in this case follows the laws of psychical mechanism, and 
is not determined by free-working causes, as, for example, 
our will. 

It is otherwise, however, where a new perception, on 
account of its content, awakens vigorous feeling, but cannot 
at once be related to its most appropriate group of ideas. 
It contradicts, it may be, all known experience so flatly, 
comes so unexpectedly and so strangely, that we can not 
relate it to what we know. The new, therefore, does not 
find its way into our understanding, it remains outside — we 
cannot grasp it. A certain unrest, an oppressive feeling of 
discomfort possesses us : we know not what to do with 
the unusual experience, what to say, what to think. The 
wonder, the astonishment at the incredible phenomenon may 
under some circumstances increase to violent emotion : we 

1 Theory of Sense Illusions, p. 14 (Zur Lehre von den Sinnestduschungen). 



16 APPERCEPTION. 

" lose our heads," our presence of mind, and stand helpless 
before the impression, or respond to it with strange or un- 
usual manifestations of will. 1 The new perception, there- 
fore, at first produces a check or arrest, a struggle in con- 
sciousness ; it stirs up thoughts and feelings which dissolve 
and supplant one another in rapid succession, and thus place 
the mind in a tense and restless condition. The momentary 
state of the mind is expressed in the acknowledgment: " I 
do not understand it (the new) ; it is incomprehensible to 
me." 

If, during this time, the new perception appears to be the 
only fixed point in all the changing inner states, the natural 
question arises : What gives it power, in spite of all oppo- 
sition, to maintain its place in consciousness? Of course its 
strength rests first of all in the continually active sense 
stimulus : what enters through the door of the senses usually 
proves to be stronger for the time being than the intensest 
reproductions that come to meet it. Soon, however, an- 
other factor makes itself felt. We remember that the per- 
ception called forth lively feelings. These as messengers 
of insight dimly indicate the real and subjective meaning 
or worth of the new perception for the remaining content 
of the mind. Before every acquisition of knowledge there 
hastens a feeling that gives premonition rather than insight, 
which indicates perhaps the direction in which the truth is 

1 This once happened to Livingston's faithful servant who wished to 
accompany the former on his journey from South Africa to Europe. " In 
his African home he had never become acquainted with any sheet of 
water that could at all be compared to that of the ocean. When he saw 
nothing but water round about him, saw the high ship gliding over the 
waves, he could not master the new and powerful impression, and, losing 
his presence of mind, dashed into the depths of the sea, never to rise 
again." — Olawsky, The Idea in the Mind of Man, p. 71 (Die Vorstellung 
im Geiste des Menschen). 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 17 

to be found, but reveals nothing of the desired clearness 
and certainty of knowledge. 1 With the assistance of un- 
conscious spiritual elements standing near the threshold of 
consciousness we feel dimly what relations exist between 
the new perception and our former experience, — whether 
the new wholly or partly contradicts the old in form or 
content. We recognize in the feeling, further, whether or 
not to expect that our inner life is to experience promo- 
tion or retardation on the part of the new perception. Not 
only are we dimly conscious of what it is in itself, but also 
in particular what it signifies for us, what it contributes to 
the elevation or depression of our mental life. Its relation 
to the self is instinctively grasped. Such feelings are well 
calculated to awaken a vigorous volitional effort on behalf 
of the perception. These feelings give to the perception an 
appreciable worth as motive for the will. It is the will that 
holds fast the perception on account of the feelings united 
with it, and prevents its sinking into unconsciousness. This 
happens, furthermore, through the assistance of related 
ideas ; for the will is active amid the variegated flow of 
ideas and feelings, arresting those out of relation to the 
new, and bringing forward those that are similar. By thus, 
in a certain sense, establishing order among the offered re- 
productions, the groups of ideas most favorable to the per- 
ception with respect to their content and emotional tone 
may appear and unfold. Now begins the careful com- 
parison of the new with the old, a weighing of the reasons 
for the union of the former with this or that line of thought 

— we reflect; form judgments, conclusions ; resolve contra- 

i ' • A remarkable feeling of truth or falsity precedes every demon- 
stration that reveals the one or the other, just as the feeling of the sub- 
tlest aesthetic lack or charm precedes the critical developments of either." 

— Jean Paul Richter. 



18 APPEKCEPTION. 

dictions, and form new combinations. We test all ideas 
lying close to consciousness to see which of them may most 
appropriately be united to the perception, or require a pre- 
vious transformation — we "collect our thoughts." When 
such a group of ideas is found, when it occupies the 
center of consciousness, together with its associated feelings 
and strivings, then all opposing ideas are sufficiently repelled 
so that the perception may fuse with it into a single pro- 
duct. The perception now becomes a new and related mem- 
ber of the old group, so that it is no longer isolated, but 
takes its place within a greater, well- arranged and firmly 
grounded order of thought ; with the help of the latter it is 
assimilated, apperceived. 

Instead of doubt and uncertainty, we have the conscious- 
ness of acquired knowledge. We are no longer confronted 
with a strange, puzzling perception, but recognize in it 
something long known or at least intelligible ; now we see 
the new with other eyes, with the inner eye of understand- 
ing, of apperception. At the same time the feeling of dis- 
comfort that accompanied the reflection gives place to a 
feeling of enrichment and furthering of mental life. The 
overcoming of certain difficulties, the accession of numerous 
ideas, the success of the act of knowledge or recognition, 
the greater clearness that the ideas have gained, awaken a 
feeling of pleasure. We become conscious of growth 
in our knowledge and power of understanding, the success- 
ful mastery over an unusual perception, which at first 
threatened to surpass our comprehension, or maintain it- 
self as an isolated fact. The significance of this new im- 
pression for our ego is now more strongly felt than at the 
beginning or during the course of the process. To this 
pleasurable feeling is easily added the effort, at favorable 
opportunity, to reproduce the product of the apperception, 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 19 

to supplement and deepen it, to unite it to other ideas, and 
thus further to extend certain chains of thought. The summit 
or the sum of these states of mind we happily express with 
the word interest. For in reality the feeling of self ap- 
pears between the various stages of the process of apper- 
ception (inter esse) ; with one's whole soul does one con- 
template the object of attention. If we regard the acquired 
knowledge as the objective result of apperception, inter- 
est must be regarded as its subjective result. 

Here we have a kind of apperception that is sharply 
distinguished from the passive kind discussed above. 
There, we saw perception and apperception enter simultane- 
ously or in rapid succession ; here, the two mental processes 
are separated by an appreciable time. There, perception 
and assimilation were completed involuntarily, almost un- 
noted and without exertion of power. Here, the more 
difficult the reflection, and the longer the thoughtful, linger- 
ing contemplation of the idea, the more conscious of 
the apperception do we become. There, the activity of ap- 
perception follows essentially the laws of the psychical 
mechanism. Here, on the contrary, freely working causes 
assert themselves in the train of thought. In feeling, the 
value of the perception for the ego, its significance for the 
remaining life of ideas and emotions, is well known. The 
will, determined by feelings of a sensuous, intellectual, aes- 
thetic, or moral nature, appears as a guiding and regulating 
force whose energetic activity comes into consciousness in 
strong sensations of innervation. It is the active appercep- 
tion that we now become acquainted with. The oftener the 
same active apperception is repeated, the more easily does it 
take place ; the less expenditure of strength will it lay claim 
to. The product of the process of thinking whose accom- 
plishment requires at first much time, and a significant 



20 APPEKCEPTION. 

degree of strength, becomes gradually condensed into notion? 
and general judgments, the apperceiving force of which be- 
comes of more and more value, and considerably abridges 
deliberation. In this way many phases of apperception are 
established, which, originally active in character, are now 
hardly to be distinguished from passive apperception. 

According to our previous discussion, it appears as an 
essential characteristic of apperception, that a new isolated 
perception blends with an old related group of ideas, i.e., 
that it is inserted into a larger and well-articulated mass of 
thought. This is not to be understood in the sense that 
every apperceived idea is localized at once, and united 
with a definite group of ideas with which alone it may be 
reproduced ; rather, that one and the same perception maybe 
apperceived by the help of different groups of ideas, and 
may, therefore, upon a different occasion, return into con- 
sciousness as a member of any one of those different groups. 1 

1 For example, why do we after the lapse of some time need to read an 
article of our own composition through again before it is finally disposed 
of, and why does it then, to our surprise, often make an impression quite 
different from that which we had when first writing it ? Because now 
other trains of thought come to meet it which, during the composition, 
were kept out of consciousness; because we judge more freely and 
impartially the work that has become in a measure, strange to us. For 
this reason, it is a well-tried rule of life in all those cases where duty does 
not bid otherwise, not to apperceive at once, thus coming to a hasty 
decision upon all new, unexpected, and important facts of experience; 
but rather to give the startled mind time to collect its thought, to "sleep 
tipon " the matter, to deliberate upon it a second time. That which 
seems to-day intolerable, incompatible with one's honor and happiness, 
will perhaps be regarded to-morrow with quite other eyes ; i. e., apper- 
ceiving ideas are found which attach to the new quite another and 
hitherto undreamed-of significance. This is expressed in Eichendorf's 

" Morgengebet " : 

" I am to-day as born anew, 
Sadness and pain have taken flight, 
Cares that o'erwhelmed in evening's view 
Give rise to shame by morning light." 

Just because the apperception of one and the same fact may quickly 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 21 

Therefore to say that a perception is united with other 
psychical products, only means that it is thought in close 
connection with them ; and hence, the one regularly repro- 
duces the other. 

But what results from the appropriation of a perception 
by an older group of ideas? What do they both gain by 
this event? Especially, what does the apperceived percep- 
tion gain? 

Many a weak, obscure and fleeting perception would pass 
almost unnoticed into obscurity, did not the additional 
activity of apperception hold it fast in consciousness. 
This sharpens the senses ; i.e., it gives to the organs of sense 
a greater degree of energy, so that the watching eye now 
sees, and the listening ear now hears, that which ordinarily 
would pass unnoticed. This supporting strength of apper- 
ception is also of value with strong and distinct perceptions. 
It directs the attention to such characteristics of the perceived 
objects as stand out but little, and, therefore, are for the 
most part overlooked. Again, it sharpens eye and ear so 
that they observe better and more thoroughly. The events 
of apperception give to the senses a peculiar keenness, which 
underlies the skill of the money-changer in detecting a 
counterfeit among a thousand bank-notes, notwithstanding 
its deceptive similarity ; of the jeweler who marks the slight- 
est, apparently imperceptible, flaw in an ornament; of the 
physicist who perceives distinctly the overtones of a vibrating 
string. According to this, we see and hear not only with 
the eye and ear, but quite as much with the help of our pres- 
ent knowledge, with the apperceiving content of the mind. 

However, apperception does still more. It often enriches 

change, just because the fact may be adjusted to different apperceptive 
groups of ideas, it is a principle of the man of character not to make 
important decisions dependent upon passing moods. 



22 APPERCEPTION. 

the perceptions with characteristics which are not given at 
all in the sphere of perception, but which are added on the 
ground of earlier experiences or as a result of certain judg- 
ments. Compare the above perception furnished us by an 
eclipse of the sun, which contained much that could not be 
seen directly, but which was contributed to the perception 
by our thinking. In nearly all perceptions such supplemen- 
tary apperception is active. We meet it in the practised 
reader of newspaper and romances, who really perceives 
only certain letters of individual word-pictures, and only a 
part of the words in each sentence, the rest being added out 
of the store-house of his own thoughts. We meet it in the 
geologist, to whom the rock-strata of the interior of the 
earth, with their impressions of plants and animals, together 
with their fossil remains, tell of mighty revolutions of nature 
in the remote past. We find it in every one who recognizes 
a person at a distance by a few individual characteristics, 
such as size, movement, clothing, etc. In the portrait of 
a noted man, we recognize much more than the painter with 
all his art was able to represent. We view historic land- 
scapes and places in the light of ideas gained by our stud- 
ies or other experiences of life. Hence how differently must 
the eternal Rome have been mirrored in the mind of a vassal 
of the middle ages, and in the soul of a Luther, a Herder,, 
or a Goethe ! And when, on the other hand, we recognize 
in the physical features of the country a natural explanation 
for certain historic peculiarities of a people or a race, the 
supplementary apperception in such a cognition is not 
of less value. Especially is it of great significance for the 
forming of space ideas. It has been determined that at 
first the child perceives only surfaces, and has no notion of 
the dimension of depth, or thickness. It grasps at every- 
thing (e.g., the moon), without regard to its distance; all 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 23 

objects are at first equally near to it. If it depended upon 
the visual sensation alone, the child would hardly gain the 
idea of depth. The sense of touch, however, soon becomes 
associated with that of sight. The peculiar sensations of 
touch, inasmuch as they unite with those of sight, teach us 
to distinguish solid bodies from surfaces, even when the 
latter are not in our immediate vicinity. How is this possi- 
ble? How can remote objects which we cannot touch be 
perceived as solid bodies by us whose eyes perceive only 
surfaces ? This fact seems only explicable with the help of 
apperception. Experience gradually convinces a man that 
those objects of the external world that carry to the sense 
of touch peculiar muscular sensations, such as only a solid 
body can cause, furnish also to the eye a visual image, 
which, with regard to the distribution of light and shade, to 
the greater or less sharpness of outline, etc. , is distinguished 
from corresponding pictures, such as surfaces reveal. 1 

These perceptions, as often as they enter simultaneously 
into consciousness, unite into a complete idea, into an idea 
of a solid body. Let it be granted that the same or a simi- 
lar body is shown at a greater distance from us ;• at first it 
would act only upon the eye, and would reproduce only 
those elements of the complete idea before mentioned 
that owe their origin to a visual sensation identical with 
or similar to the one just completed. These are united, 
however, with certain muscular sensations which refer to 
the perception of a solid body, and not of a surface ; conse- 
quently, these latter will enter consciousness according to 
the law of simultaneity, and, in connection with that repro- 

1 The exposition of the physiological conditions under which stereo- 
scopic vision takes place, may he omitted here, where only the phase of 
apperception is treated that hears upon the origin of the idea of a solid 
body. 



24 APPERCEPTION. 

cluced visual sensation, will present a mass of ideas which 
takes possession of the perception, explains it, and by a new 
element, the characteristic of third dimension, — completes it. 
Thus arises an assimilation of the new idea by the old, which 
is expressed in the judgment : That object is also a solid 
body. A person to whom this apperceptive help is lacking, 
who like the child in its first weeks and months possesses too 
few space ideas, will in this case perceive surfaces only, 
not solid bodies. We may say, therefore, that appercep- 
tion should complete our space observation. It does this 
in so many cases that we usually overlook its influence, 
and believe that we perceive solid bodies directly, whereas 
apperception with the aid of experience really explains 
them. 

From the foregoing examples, it follows that, while ap- 
perception strengthens and holds weak perceptions in con- 
sciousness, it also extends, adjusts, and completes them, 
and it aids all these psychical products in securing greater 
clearness and distinctness. It does this even where the ap- 
perception would not enrich the perception by a single char- 
acteristic. , For example, if we comprehend an object of ob- 
servation through a general notion to which it belongs, a 
new experience through a law to which it is subordinated, 
the perception gains in clearness by subsumption under the 
more generalized knowledge. We distinguish then between 
the essential and the non-essential in it, and the most impor- 
tant characteristics of the new perception receive a desirable 
strengthening through the apperceiving notion. Further- 
more, the activity of the apperceived idea is increased with 
growing clearness. By its insertion into a large, well- 
ordered circle of thought accompanied by lively feelings, it 
enters into outer and inner relations with so many members 
of this group that a regular reproduction is assured to it- It 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 25 

can fall into oblivion only with these ideas themselves. Be- 
sides, if it belongs to more than one group of ideas, then it 
will be favored, not only by frequent reproductions, but at 
the same time by those having many significations, by which 
its content will be made clear on the most diverse sides. 

Iu deed, there are cases when the reproduction is anything 
but fundamental, where it directly favors a superficial, fleet- 
ing apprehension of external objects. Numberless times we 
go through a well known street and pass imposing buildings 
without perceiving them better or more distinctly than at 
first. With the aid of apperception we find our way aright 
with only a fleeting perception, and so are not under the 
necessity of observing more keenly or searchingly. We 
cannot say how many times we have recognized and re- 
peated the alphabet in our reading, and yet very few among 
us could copy accurately the large letters of the old English 
type without special preparation for the work ; through ap- 
perception we have lost the habit of perceiving those pho- 
netic sounds other than vaguely and incompletely. Not 
infrequently it even leads to wrong apprehensions. We 
imagine that we see before us in bodily form that which we 
wish or fear. When the boy in Goethe's ballad mistakes 
a streak of fog on the edge of the meadow for the Erlking, 
a shining willow for the Erlking 's daughter, and in the 
whistling of the wind hears the alluring, coaxing words of 
the water-sprite ; when Lessing's Recha sees in the Knight- 
Templar an angel sent from Heaven, we are not confronted 
by erroneous perceptions ; " The senses do not deceive, not 
because they always judge correctly, but because they do 
not judge at all." 1 The illusion is due rather to apperceiv- 
ing ideas posted at the threshold of consciousness ; for, in- 
asmuch as they passed themselves off as identical with the 

i See Kant's Anthropology, pp. 33. 



26 APPERCEPTION. 

new and entering perception, they assimilated it accordingly 
and entirely changed it in accordance with their own mean- 
ing. 

In such cases we cannot affirm, that apperception in- 
creases the objective truth and clearness of the perception. 
We may say, however, that the perceptions through their 
insertion into other groups of ideas, even though wrong 
ones, gain in activity and strength. In later reproductions 
they may easily find the right aid to apperception, which 
subsequently corrects the defective apprehension and thus 
raises it to greater clearness. 

Not only the apperceived idea, but also the apperceiving 
group of ideas, i.e., the old reproduced combination, suffers, 
for the most part, a change in the process of assimilation. 
The oftener it returns into consciousness, upon the occasion 
of new perceptions, and undergoes its various changes in their 
presence, so much stronger and clearer may it become, so 
much the oftener is opportunity offered it to enter into new 
combinations, and thus to increase its own activity. In ad- 
dition to this, the new perception finally blending with it in 
many cases enriches and essentially completes it. The dis- 
tinct perception gained by observing a solar eclipse adds to 
the apperceiving ideas new characteristics ; for instance, the 
appearances of protuberances, of the corona, of certain va- 
riations of color during the twilight, etc., without which these 
ideas will not appear again. The apperceiving thoughts and 
conditions of mind of the listening crowd in the theater at 
Corinth, through the unexpected, but energetically assimilated 
perception, received such an extension as was hardly to 
be expected in its completeness and rapidity. In like manner 
when the botanist puts a newly discovered plant into a 
known class, when the judge puts a criminal offense under a 
definite paragraph of the penal law, these subsuming notions 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 27 

are extended. In this way — viz., that of enriching and 
extending — apperceiving groups of ideas gradually change 
to general images and logical notions ; singular and par- 
ticular judgments change to laws and rules. While new 
perceptions thus promote the gradual logical transforma- 
tion of our thought, they richly repay the assimilating ele- 
ments the service which the latter have rendered them in 
the act of apperception. 

If the apperceiving group of ideas have wrong character- 
istics, then the perception undertakes their correction. This 
occurs in all cases where a fact that has been observed 
accurately and attentively, repeatedly obtrudes itself upon 
us. It occurs when our perception corresponds entirely 
to the object of sensation, and for this reason develops 
such strength and clearness that, notwithstanding the 
presence of notions in consciousness contradictory to it, 
we are not able to deny its truth. Thus, for example, 
the child learns from the green seed-capsules of the potato 
stalk that the potatoes are not the fruit, as he has hitherto 
supposed, but the root-tubers of that plant. Then by a visit 
to the zoological garden he learns, to his astonishment, that 
the otter is not, as he imagined, a water-serpent ; or he 
corrects his idea of the sea-lion, or of the cray-fish, whose 
name has hitherto had only too much influence upon his 
ideas of this animal. 

If the new perception is of such a kind that it corrects not 
only one or several old ideas, but important, far-reaching- 
lines of thought, then the apperceiving mass of ideas under- 
goes a change which is equivalent to a complete revolution. 
Whole groups of thoughts then become roused, freeing 
themselves from the perception and forming themselves 
anew. We must give up fixed combinations of ideas 
that have become dear to us, and must make new asso- 



28 APPERCEPTION. 

ciations opposed to our previous notions. The process of 
assimilation now becomes not so much an addition to learn- 
ing, as a reconstruction of learning. Naturally such a revo- 
lution is accompanied by an active exercise of the emotions. 
A painful unrest takes possession of us. At first, we do 
not know whether we are sleeping or waking ; to whom we 
should yield ; and a long time elapses before the material of 
thought, with its disturbed and broken combinations, gathers 
around a new centre and finally blends with it. Such ap- 
perceptions often indicate significant progress in the sphere 
of art and science. From Archimedes, Columbus, and 
Copernicus to Galvani, Volta, and the investigators and 
discoverers of the present day, the history of civilization 
witnesses how a single new perception, a single swift and 
happy thought, sometimes overthrows whole systems, and 
brings the investigating mind farther in a definite sphere of 
knowledge than the thoughtful work of many centuries has 
been able to bring it. Where the adjusting, upheaving activity 
of the new perception is extended, however, into the practical 
sphere of will and action, to ethical and religious habits of 
thought which hitherto ruled the soul, and from which pro- 
ceeded the deepest and strongest feelings, the most numer- 
ous and the most active efforts, then apperception will often 
bring about a thorough transformation of the moral dis- 
position, a new period of the inner life, of which the 
conversion of Saul, and the awakening of Zinzendorf 1 
are sufficient examples. 2 

1 The painting of the Crucifixion in the Dusseldorf gallery, with the in- 
scription ; " This I did for thee ; what hast thou done for me ?" 

2 We grant that in weak and characterless natures the change of ethical 
insight does not necessarily imply as a result the transformation of the 
will, that in such natures a contradiction between knowing and doing is 
frequently to he observed. But here the above mentioned presupposition 
is wanting, viz. : that hitherto an ethical circle of thought has determined 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 29 

If in all these cases the new perception brings about so 
wide-reaching a change in old habits of thought ; if it is the 
center of new combinations of ideas, then the question arises 
whether here the factors of mental assimilation do not 
change their r61e, whether the perception does not now ap- 
pear as the apperceiving idea, and whether the old group of 
thoughts may not be regarded as apperceived. The dominating 
force with which the new makes itself felt in consciousness, 
and necessitates the loosening . of fixed bands of thought, 
appears indeed to favor this view. That which, for the 
moment at least, rules the inner world and is a standard for 
other observations might very well be considered an apper- 
ceiving power. 

But however long the new perception stands in the fore- 
ground of consciousness, however manifold are the correc- 
tions which the old concepts undergo by it, and however 
incompatible it may seem to be with the whole range of 
previous experience, yet ultimately it finds a place where it 
comes to rest in a group of ideas with which it is able to 
blend. Moreover, in so-called awakenings and conversions, 
in profound changes in a man's theoretical or practical 
views, so many fast-rooted, related notions remain un- 
touched by the transforming influence of the perception, 
that the latter, with all the ideas which it has readjusted, may 
become inserted into the old as a new and valuable member. 
Where active apperception takes place with such intensity 

and guided all willing and action, that the strongest feelings and efforts 
have arisen from ethical views and judgments. He who regards the good 
only as theoretical knowledge, and not as a source of nohle inspiration 
and of vigorous resolution, may change his convictions repeatedly 
without his disposition being touched thereby. Moreover, we may also 
mention that a fundamental and lasting change of mind demands, beside 
the change of insight, also a continuous exercise of will in other 
directions. 



30 APPERCEPTION. 

and to such extent that we become actively conscious of an 
internal emotional struggle, then the apperceiving subject is 
never an isolated group of ideas, that, for instance, suggested 
by the perception, but all related ideas become apperceiv- 
iugly active, together with their conscious and unconscious 
members. This is especially true of such ideas as are 
united to the empirical ego through feelings and efforts. 
Then let a perception act with as much transforming power 
as it may in a certain sphere of our knowing and thinking, 
it will finally, with all its new members, be united as an 
isolated and hence less powerful group to the old stock of 
thought now united with the ego in a thousand ways. So 
much do we stand under the ban of the past that even the most 
unexpected and important new experiences are not able, under 
normal conditions, entirely to overturn the structure of a 
man's thought, but they must be arranged as building- stones, 
and only as such can they be of any value in it. As the 
Lord suddenly appeared in heavenly light to Paul on the 
way to Damascus, and with the mighty, " Saul, Saul, why 
persecatest thou me?" startled his conscience, a transforma- 
tion began to take place in this disciple of the Pharisees 
greater and more decisive than can easily be conceived. The 
crucified Savior whom he believed to be dead appears to him 
in person and convinces him that he lives. And how does 
he live ! He whom Paul had scorned and reviled as a 
blasphemer and an evil-doer — he reigns in Heaven. Those 
whom he had hitherto persecuted and tormented as fanatics 
and apostates, the disciples and followers of Christ, are 
innocent, pious people, the true Israelites and believers in the 
Messiah. And in what a light does his own life and struggle 
now appear to him ! That with which he believed he had 
done God service was vain error. That in which he had 
sought the highest glory had yielded him the deepest failure. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 31 

Now he must hate what he had before loved, and must love 
and reverence what he had hitherto hated. Truly a whole 
world of new facts and experiences streams in upon his 
ethico-religious thoughts and convictions. And how is it 
with regard to his new experience? Had the new satisfied 
itself in repressing the hitherto false and contradictory views 
and struggles in him in order to assert itself as a new center 
of thought and experience isolated in consciousness? Or 
with the help of the new was the whole remaining ethico- 
religious product of thought and feeling loosened from its re- 
lations and newly arranged ; in a word, was it newly apper- 
ceived? We do not believe so. For then the new, because 
it had entirely broken with the past of Saul, could have dis- 
played no especial activity and vigor, notwithstanding its 
richness and its high emotional value. Out of Saul would 
have developed a converted, contrite, Christian soul, but 
never the heroic apostle to the heathen, who with the 
old strength served the new Lord. The comparatively 
short time in which his conversion took place, the victorious 
resoluteness and joyousness with which he, after a few days, 
confessed the Christ and proclaimed him, are proofs that he 
had comprehended and assimilated the new and important 
facts with the help of old habits of thought which did not 
need a transformation, with the help of a mental treasure 
whose urgent force showed itself effective even in the new 
sphere of religious life. The pure and stern idea of God 
that he had obtained from the writings of the old Covenant, 
the longing for the Messiah, which he shared with all believ- 
ing Israelites, the honest faithfulness and piety, the staunch, 
manly will, the zeal for God and his cause, the full, deeply 
religious, and morally earnest apprehension of life which dis- 
tinguished him from many others , — these were traits of his 
nature, which were in no respect at variance with the new 



32 APPERCEPTION. 

Gospel. Added to this came the more recent startling experi- 
ences. He had seen the religious courage and the enthusiasm 
of the disciples, those homely, untaught men ; had looked into 
the glorified face of the dying Stephen, and he had perhaps 
carried away with him impressions which, on the long, lonely 
way to Damascus, had made themselves felt as reproaches 
and doubts. 1 

Even if he now comprehends rightly the Heavenly mani- 
festations and turns himself to the Lord, it does not hap- 
pen so because the new perception has overpowered his 
whole religious thinking and willing, but on the ground of 
his previous inner experience, after severe mental conflict, 
he decides upon a change of view and of will so far as they 
were erroneous, and upon the insertion of the new experience 
into the present system of thought, into his whole emotional 
life. He does not give himself up to the new ideas as a cap- 
tive without a will, but he has so many ethico-religious con- 
victions at command that he is able to test the value of the 
former for his whole ego impartially, and to appropriate them 
with a free will — for he might also have closed his heart to 
the knowledge of the new. He apperceived the new with 
the help of ideas and states of mind closely combined with 
his ego. 2 

1 In support of this view, whose correctness has "been disputed from the 
theological side, we have the fact that Saul understood the words of the 
Lord in all their importance, while his unprepared companions perceived 
only a voice and nothing further. Accordingly the fact that Saul apper- 
ceived the purport of the call, presupposes ideas and states of mind which 
were favorable to the reception and understanding of the new. Such sus- 
ceptibility gained through internal struggle might be lacking in his fellow 
travelers, for which reason they would obtain only a dim perception of the 
matter. 

2 The foregoing presentation does not claim to have taken up and des- 
cribed the process designated by theology as inner " regeneration." When 
we referred to some of the co-operating psychical factors we were fully 
conscious that the heart of man with its changes and its vicissitudes still 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 33 

Where this does not occur, where new important experi- 
ences are not joined to the related old ones, but occupy an 
isolated position alongside and out of relation to them, thus 
becoming for themselves a power of the mind, then abnor- 
mal conditions predominate, which may easily give rise to 
mental disease. As here the failure in apperception may 
lead to division of the ego 1 ; so there where for the same 
reason a man must break with his whole past, which has 
become dear to him, — viz. : in the ethico-religious sphere, — 

remains for psychologists an unfathomable mystery. Upon the ground 
of experience, and in the interests of moral freedom, we felt obliged to 
emphasize one thing, viz. : that the inner conversion is not synonymous 
with a purely mechanical exchange and displacement of the old by the 
new man, but that it presents an assimilation of the new facts of experi- 
ence, a new formation of thought and effort which does not take place 
suddenly, but gradually. Where the ego decides freely upon the accept- 
ance of new thoughts and sentiments, there the new never appears uncon- 
nected nor as apperceiving the old. For the ego of man is the representa- 
tive of his previous inner experience. To be apprehended by it means to 
be joined to old fixed ideas and states of mind. 

1 We cite the old captain in Immermann's " Munchausen." He had 
fought with distinction under the French against the Russians, and after- 
wards, when everybody was marching against France, he fought in the 
Prussian service no less bravely against his former companions in arms. 
When peace came and everything around him was to be adjusted to his 
feelings — to the former French sympathies and to the newly awakened 
spirit of the Fatherland — such a union of opposing inclinations and senti- 
ments could not succeed with the old soldier : he could not entertain the 
idea that within the period of a year he should have been a brave French- 
man and a brave Prussian. The memories of the war with their sympathies 
and antipathies had, in consequence of the rapid change, encamped sepa- 
rately side by side, and his rigid though honorable character allowed no 
reconciliation between them. Finally after a dangerous sickness which 
made him free, body and soul, to a certain extent, he found equilibrium 
again. He established military order in his memories. He arranged two 
rooms, of which one was dedicated to recollections of the Napoleonic victo- 
ries, the other to the memory of the glorious deeds of the champions of free- 
dom. He always occupied them by turns according to his dominating 
political mood. Now he was entirely French and exclusively absorbed 
in the splendor of the Napoleonic time, and again he was decidedly Prus- 
sian and a panegyrist of the German uprising. 



34 APPERCEPTION. 

it may lead to a weakening of the ego, to a paralyzing of 
his feeling of selfhood and of his mental energy. 

Under normal conditions, on the contrary, even the strang- 
est and most exciting perception will finally find its resting 
place, its apperceiving subject, in fixed habits of thought 
and feeling. The mental soundness of a man is essentially 
determined by such a union of the present with the past, 
by the assimilation of new impressions with old ones. 

Up to the present time our presentation of the process of 
apperception has been limited to cases where an external 
perception reaches assimilation. If we recollect now that 
the latter after the cessation of the external excitation be- 
comes an idea, which retains all the combinations that have 
hitherto been entered into, the conjecture arises that an 
apperception may come to pass even between mere ideas. 
Indeed, reproduced psychical products as well as percep- 
tions, internal as well as external perceptions, may be in- 
wardly assimilated. We have here, then, only a special case 
of the general process of apperception, to which we must 
devote a few words. 

Of all the concepts which the soul of man creates, many 
are so weak and fleeting, many strike so strong and so 
numerous contradictions, that they either become obscured 
at once or find no circle of thought which they can join. 
We do not notice them, or do not know how to make any- 
thing out of them ; we are not able to make them agree with 
the other ideas. In both cases, whether they rest apparently 
forever below the- threshold of consciousness or hold them- 
selves apart in consciousness, no apperception has taken 
place. Hence those ideas, not being fully understood, have 
but a limited value for the mental life ; in case they continued 
in this condition, they would, finally, be entirely lost. If a 
group of thoughts nearly related to those weak and isolated 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 35 

ideas rises into consciousness (either spontaneously or medi- 
ately reproduced) , and with a strength and clearness which 
maintain it against all opposition ; if by virtue of its mani- 
fold combinations, which it entered into with the other masses 
of ideas, it dominates the latter for a time, then there will 
be a movement among the related thoughts, which till now 
were not rightly understood. We shall recollect much that 
seemed to have fallen already into oblivion and much will 
become distinct and clear that was to us until now a ' ' book 
with seven seals." The dominating group of ideas illumin- 
ates the darkness and now we cannot comprehend how such a 
fact could escape us, how we could not at once understand 
it or could interpret it wrongly. Light now appears, "the 
scales fall from our eyes," we see clearly that which was 
hitherto hidden from us ; the isolated and scattered elements 
of thought have now found a fixed point with which they 
can unite, with reference to which they can adjust them- 
selves ; the apperception is complete. 

How often in the soul of the poet may such thoughts and 
inner experiences await the happy hour when a favorable 
mood grants them the right expression, the artistic form! 
For poetic creation is more than a clever play of the fancy. 
Lively, tender, memories out of the poet's own emotional life 
must come to the help of the poetic fancies, and there must 
come also that formative force which, as a regulating power, 
enters into the variegated world of fancy, chooses thoughts 
and tests their worth; which unites and builds according 
to a fixed plan ; and which subjects even the creation itself 
again to criticism, rejecting the unessential disturbing ac- 
cessories and supplying deficiencies. This formative force of 
the will, however, is awakened and guided by certain aesthetic 
ideas and feelings at the root of the artistic conviction and 
mental bias of man. The latter stand in the background of 



36 APPERCEPTION. 

the stage and, themselves invisible, work upon the ideas in 
the foreground of consciousness so that the latter attain a 
right meaning and deeper significance in an artistic whole. 
Hence in the act of poetic creation, habitual ideas and 
aesthetic feeling appear as the apperceiving factor. 

The case is similar with the investigator who seeks to 
solve a scientific problem. From within arise thoughts of 
possible solutions, of ways and means to the end ; but 
likewise from within there arises a system of thoroughly 
assimilated knowledge with which the newly obtained ideas 
must square themselves, opposing elements being repressed 
and kindred ones absorbed. Here the apperception proceeds 
from an acquired fund of knowledge which possesses a pre- 
dominating activity and, as authenticated and firmly fixed 
opinion, measures itself with newly arising ideas, thereby 
either supporting or condemning them. 

Not always, as in the foregoing examples, is the apper- 
ceived idea the less powerful factor, which adjusts itself 
according to the content of the combination of ideas already 
present. On the contrary, it may also upon occasion display 
such strength that the apperceiving ideas undergo correction 
and change from it. When the investigator in the sphere of 
science, in consequence of fortunate combinations of ideas, 
unexpectedly reaches an hypothesis which throws an entirely 
new light upon hitherto obscure and unintelligible facts, and 
teaches him to grasp certain manifestations in another and 
deeper significance; when to the jealous man, harmless 
memories which were to him for a long time indifferent, or 
perhaps precious, suddenly become accusers of one who is 
to him dearest upon earth (Othello) ; when his diseased 
fancy sees treachery everywhere and busily brings ever new 
material to the fire of his passion, — in every such case, active 
reproduced ideas are present which at first arouse certain 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 37 

lines of thought, in order finally to insert themselves into the 
related groups, thus giving them a new illumination. Often 
these notions do not stop at correcting individual observa- 
tions, but they not seldom break through and transform 
whole regions of thought. Then there arise in the soul such 
storms as we have spoken of above, occasioned by overpow- 
ering sense-perceptions. 

According to the foregoing, there is not the slightest doubt 
that internal perceptions and reproduced psychical products 
may be apperceived just as well as external perceptions ; it 
is not necessary therefore that one of the latter be present. 
The first form of assimilation has since the time of Her- 
bart been designated as internal, the second, as external ap- 
perception. Yet the names chosen are not to be regarded as 
entirely suitable. Others have remarked in criticism that ap- 
perception — even the external apperception — is always the 
assimilation of an internal condition, and that for this reason 
there is, strictly speaking, only internal apperception. In that 
case the expression " internal apperception" or " appercep- 
tion of the inner perception," favors the erroneous assumption 
that the second kind of apperception is synonymous with de- 
signed internal perception, or self-observation. It would 
seem as if the apperception of an inner state or idea, always 
includes an act of self -observation. This is, however, by 
no means the case. 

In apperception as we have hitherto known it, our conscious- 
ness is directed exclusively to the content of the ideas. We 
give ourselves up so entirely to the ideas as represented that, 
under circumstances of this kind, we forget ourselves and 
our activity. As the soldier in the midst of the confusion 
of combat is so completely taken captive by external impres- 
sions that he does not think of his own condition, so the 
person apperceiving lives chiefly in the objective world of 



38 APPERCEPTION. 

observations and thoughts. He asks concerning the rela- 
tions existing between them, but not concerning the sub- 
ject to which they belong, or the activity which creates 
them. In strong emotion, in states of passion or enthus- 
iasm, the apperception often gains very unusual, even 
though very one-sided, results, while the moral self-exam- 
ination that gives attention to one's own thinking and acting 
is not present. Thus, for instance, the poet in the moment 
of happy creation is entirely fettered by the objects of his 
fancy. The better the apperception succeeds, the farther 
is he removed from observing himself in his work. Indeed, 
untimely reflection would hinder the progress of apper- 
ception. 

On the other hand, if we observe ourselves, our conscious- 
ness is directed especially to the process of representing, will- 
ing and feeling. To the consciousness of ideas is associated 
the consciousness that we produce them. That which has 
occurred in our minds, or is occurring, becomes the object of a 
new representation o We have then not merely thoughts and 
ideas ; but, at the same time, we become conscious of them 
as of an internal activity, and this activity proceeds from 
one and the same subject, from the ego. These ideas 
belong to us. We become conscious of a matter. In that 
case, the ideas do not stand, as in the case of appercep- 
tion, as objective images before the soul, but they penetrate 
deeper within, until they come into close connection with 
the germ of the self, the ego. In apperception, the atten- 
tion turns principally to the object of representation ; in self- 
observation, on the contrary, to the subject of representation. 
In the one case, we ask whether two psychical products unite 
with one another ; in the other, how this combination took 
place according to psychical laws, and how our ego-conscious- 
ness presented itself. And we find, as our own activity 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 39 

becomes the object of observation, that we have judged or 
willed, thought or felt, imagined or calculated, sought or 
shunned, or whatever else the inner process may be called. 
We recognize this inner activity not only as ours, but we dis- 
tinguish it also from every other, and thereby give it a definite 
content. We arrange it then into certain classes of inner 
events, just as in the apperception already described we 
arrange the perceptions presented to our senses into certain 
categories of outer experience. Consequently, self -observa- 
tion is nothing but apperception, although of a special and 
higher kind, inasmuch as here the subject of apperception is 
the ego itself. Indeed we often become conscious, in the 
other kinds of apperception, of the inner relation in which 
the object assimilated stands to our ego, of the value which 
a perception has for our whole inner life. But while here 
this consciousness manifests itself in obscure feelings, in self- 
observation during an act of knowledge it becomes incompar- 
ably clearer. As the process of apperception comes to 
consciousness chiefly through the feelings of tension accom- 
panying it, so in many cases a kind of internal perception 
awakened by those sensations may accompany the mental 
assimilation, only of course in the form of a feeling or of the 
general thought, "I think," or "I perceive." As soon, 
however, as this internal perception assumes a more active 
character and brings the individual psychical processes 
into review before the ego, it ceases to accompany the 
apperception. In this case a second perception follows the 
first, which was directed to the content of the ideas, and 
this second perception renders the process of apperception 
itself an object of observation and assimilation — an act of 
self -observation. It follows apperception, for in reality, as 
Drobisch rightly says, intentional self -observation is a con- 
stant failure : ' i the observation always comes later than the 



40 APPERCEPTION. 

occurrence." Our self-observation is for the most part, not 
an observance of what is now going on, but a contemplation 
that hastens on, after the event to be observed has gone 
by, a tarrying with memories. "When the process of apper- 
ception has reached a conclusion in the judgment A=Z, then 
self-observation apprehends the individual parts of this oc- 
currence as the peculiar conditions of the active soul, and 
the apperceived idea as the possession of the ego. This 
latter recognizes the product of apperception as the idea that 
is expressed in the judgment: I have A. We, i.e., our 
empirical ego, then regard ourselves as the real subject of 
apperception. We recognize clearly the significance that 
the new perception has for our mental development. The 
more vigorous an active apperception is, the more surely 
does self-observation seem to follow it. This is explained 
partly upon the ground of the action of the will in the prog- 
ress of the ideas and feelings, partly on the ground of the 
lively emotional and bodily excitations that accompany 
the occurrence. The latter are those which continue after 
the completed apperception, warning us of the inner events, 
and making us attentive to them. On the contrary, that 
which is easily and readily apperceived, or is indifferent to 
the ego, does not leave a deep impression behind it. It 
does not excite attention, and hence seldom arouses self-ob- 
servation. Consquently the latter is neither a necessary 
characteristic nor a regularly accompanying manifestation of 
apperception. Self-observation frequently goes on obscurely 
side by side with apperception ; more frequently still, the 
former follows the latter as a new and higher grade of 
apperception, or it may be entirely lacking. 

Let us now sum up the essentials in the process of apper- 
ception. First of all, an external or internal perception, an 
idea, or idea-complex appears in consciousness, finding more 



THE THEOKY OF APPERCEPTION. 41 

or less response in the mind, i.e., giving rise to a greater or 
less stimulation to thought and feeling. 1 

In consequence of this, and in accordance with the psy- 
chical mechanism or an impulse of the will, one or more 
groups of thoughts arise, which enter into relation with the 
perception. While the two masses are compared with one an- 
other, the}^ work upon one another with more or less of a 
transforming power. New thought-combinations are formed, 
until, finally, the perception is adjusted to the stronger and 
older thought combination. In this way all the factors con- 
cerned gain in value as to knowledge and feeling ; especially, 
however, does the new idea gain a clearness and activity that 
it never would have gained for itself. Apperception is 

THEREFORE THAT PSYCHICAL ACTIVITY BY WHICH INDIVIDUAL 
PERCEPTIONS, IDEAS, OR IDEA-COMPLEXES ARE BROUGHT INTO 
RELATION TO OUR PREVIOUS INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL 
LIFE, ASSIMILATED WITH IT, AND THUS RAISED TO GREATER 
CLEARNESS, ACTIVITY AND SIGNIFICANCE. 2 

We are well aware that this explanation does not fully 
exhaust the nature of apperception. Mental assimilation 
is indeed an event that unites in itself various elementary 
processes, and in which factors are acting that elude observa- 
tion. Without doubt it depends upon an interaction of 
ideas ; but it is more than this, inasmuch as it also includes 

the products of thought and feeling arising through the ac- 

• 

1 Yet it also happens that apperceiving ideas enter first, and call up iso- 
lated ideas for apprehension ; as when, for example, we seek examples 
for a known rule. 

2 The derivation of the word apperception (from ad and percipere, to 
grasp, to perceive) signifies that a new perception is united with another, 
a new cognition is adjusted in proper order with present psychical pro- 
ducts. Apperception is (according to Willmann) the " added apprehen- 
sion, the co-operation of reception and reproduction of mental products," 
" the perfected apprehension of an idea by means of other reproduced 
ideas." 



42 APPERCEPTION. 

tivity of thinking. Its two principal kinds correspond to 
involuntary and voluntary attention ; it is not, however, 
merely an energy holding the ideas fast in consciousness, 
but it embraces also the conditions and results of conscious- 
ness, the objective knowledge of the inner relations existing 
between the ideas. Finally, it is always accompanied by a 
fusion or blending of ideas, an accession of new, isolated 
elements to older and richer related thought. But it is more 
than a mere blending, more than a receptive taking-up of new 
impressions ; it is rather their self -active apprehension and 
elaboration. It not only includes an increase in theoretical 
or practical knowledge, but at the same time it signifies an 
elevation of our feeling and effort, the apprehension of a new 
psychical product through the emotions. It is the process of 
growth of the soul ; it is mental development. 

2. Conditions of Apperception. 

The result of mental assimilation, the facility or difficulty 
of process, its strength and power, are first of all dependent 
upon the nature of the apperceived as well as of the apper- 
ceiving ideas, upon the elements of thought and feeling 
accompanying them; i.e., upon the existing conditions of 
mind and heart. While the two latter important factors, in 
consequence of their obscure, indefinite character, are little 
accessible to our observation, the significance of the former 
for the process of apperception may be more easily recog- 
nized. Our attention must, therefore, be turned chiefly 
to them so far as we have to do with the psychical con- 
ditions of apperception. For the sake of brevity and 
simplicity, however, it is usual to indicate the apper- 
ceived and apperceiving groups of ideas, including their 
accompanying states of mind, as the object and subject of 
apperception. Yet these expressions must be understood 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 43 

figuratively ; for in reality the thinking, feeling, and willing 
soul is the subject of apperception, or, in the case of self- 
observation, the real ego is the subject. The masses of 
ideas, moving toward one another, are not to be regarded as 
active, independent existences, but rather as means employed 
by the soul that knows and wills. 

A perception or idea becomes the object of apperception, 
if, upon its entrance into consciousness, it finds more or less 
response ; i.e., if it calls up other ideas, together with the feel- 
ings and efforts associated with them. Such exciting force, 
however, is manifested by those ideas that stand in relation 
to old kindred groups of ideas, or to the ego. That which 
is entirely strange leaves us cold ; the absolutely new is not 
understood. That, however, which recalls the known in its 
form or its content, often attains thereby a high value for 
the feelings ; attention naturally turns to it. Well-known 
perceptions are assimilated quickly and without trouble — 
an act of apperception that is designated recognition. If, 
on the contrary, the new agrees with earlier experiences only 
in part, if it is but partially similar to that which we already 
know, then the assimilation is for the most part completed 
but gradually, and we become conscious of it as mental 
labor. Such apperception includes an act of learning. 
Wherever we are concerned with the discovery of truth, 
or the creation of thought products, the present mental store 
is always confronted by that which is relatively new. 

These related perceptions that form the object of apper- 
ception should consist neither of weak, wavering ideas hav- 
ing no power to effect reproduction, nor of such strong, 
overpowering impressions as of themselves fill the con- 
sciousness and crowd out all other thoughts. A too rapid, as 
well as too slow, unfolding of the stages of a perception must 
also be avoided. The measure of time for such unfolding, 



44 APPERCEPTION. 

or development, will have to be adjusted to the greater or 
less facility with which the movement of ideas takes place 
in the individual in question. The more we allow time for 
the various parts of a perception to be taken up carefully, 
and the more sharply we distinguish them from one another, 
the more thoroughly is the apperception perfected. 1 

It is because thoroughgoing apperception is added to deep 
aesthetic feeling, that solemn things so powerfully impress 
the mind. ' ' And all things of slow movement, if not ad- 
verse to the idea on other grounds, approach the solemn" 
(Herbart) . So much for the object of apperception. 

Among the ideas awakened by a perception, those which 
for the time being display the greatest power are called 
the subject of apperception. The power of these ideas 
depends first of all upon their intensity and activity. 
Knowledge which has "flown" to us, which has been 
drilled into us, which did not arise from our own active 
experience, is deficient in such force. Book-knowledge is 
likely to give exhausted, feeble aids to apperception. He 
who sees only with the eyes of another and not with his 
own senses, is always lacking in vigorous, active thoughts 

1 In " The Soul's Comfort," a religious book of the middle ages, which 
contains numerous anecdotes illustrating the Ten Commandments, the 
Father-confessor asks a woman how many Pater Nosters she says daily. 
She replies: " When I come to Mass and God gives me grace so that I 
can say my Pater Noster well, then I say half a Pater Noster, or a fourth 
part, or a whole Pater Noster; hut if I do not succeed well, then I say 
a dozen or one hundred Pater Nosters." Then she explained how this 
occurred. "When she began the prayer earnestly and reflected upon all 
the love and faithfulness which her Heavenly Father had hitherto shown 
her and all men, then she could not easily get beyond the beginning, 
and would finish a whole Mass with the words: "Our Father." Just 
so it was with the next words. If she wished to reflect with true fervor 
upon every part, during a whole service, she could barely repeat the whole 
once. Only when she had no sincerity did she sometimes say fifty Pater 
Nosters. But then she did not count her effort successful. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 45 

that spring forth at the right moment and make themselves 
felt in the apperceiving process. One may have learned a 
marvellous amount, and yet in regard to capacity for apper- 
ceiving be a very stupid fellow. We ourselves must have 
elaborated that which is to gain force and life in us. For we 
not only learn more thoroughly the things we work out for 
ourselves, but with this self -helpfulness are closely connected 
the, feelings of successful effort. But feelings are best capa- 
ble of rendering mobile and permanent the multitude of our 
inner states. That with which the memory of painful or 
happy hours is associated, that which is entwined with the 
heart by a thousand threads, stands, as a rule, nearest to 
consciousness, and generally offers itself first to the newly- 
entering perceptions as an aid to apperception. 1 

Ideas of high emotional value, groups of thought that 
proceeded from very strong, distinct perceptions, and, in 
consequence of frequent repetition, have made numerous 



1 This fact is very beautifully expressed by Vogel in the well known 

poem " Das Erkennen " (The Recognition) : — 

" A wanderer, with his staff in hand, 
Comes home again from a foreign land ; 
His hair is begrimed, his face is burned ; 
Who'll first know the lad that's home returned? " 

His friend, the collector, does not recognize him, and even his sweet- 
heart opposes a cool and reserved attitude to the greeting of the young fel- 
low, so much has the sun scorched his face. But the mother ? Ah ! at the 
first glance she recognizes the returned wanderer. In her soul lives most 
strongly and warmly the dear son's image, glorified by the sunshine of un- 
selfish, faithful love. So closely has the youth grown with her whole be- 
ing that she has remembered him daily and hourly, and even in the 
stillness of the little church or the quiet grave-yard she has sent long- 
ing thoughts after her absent son. So entirely does his image fill her 
soul that she, in contrast with the collector and the sweetheart, has 
no room for other persons and interests, for distracting and diverting 
thoughts. Such true affection sharpens the aging eye, so that it turns 
steady and clear upon the stranger. 

" Sorely as the sun his face has burned, 
The mother's eye knows her boy returned." 



46 APPERCEPTION. 

combinations among themselves and with the self, manifest 
this activity and susceptibility, by virtue of which they return 
to consciousness upon the slightest occasion. They form 
such dominating habits of thought as arise from scientific 
study, professions, and daily environments. 

True, the strength and activity of the apperceiving ideas 
do not of themselves guarantee the correctness of the apper- 
ception. The child, for example, whose relatively modest 
and defective store of experience is ready at hand, not infre- 
quently apperceives more quickly than the adult. Yet on 
this account it contributes more to the external perception, 
thus giving rise to incorrect subjective apperceptions. The 
case is similar with the adult who, during his whole life, has 
not been freed from closely restricted relations, and in con- 
sequence of the limitation of his store of ideas, of the nar- 
rowness of his mental horizon, is able only with difficulty to 
bring his mind into harmony with foreign thoughts, customs 
and habits, being but seldom able to speak of them without 
prejudice. Here the strength of individual experience re- 
peated a thousand times, and thus grown to a favorite habit, 
is a hindrance to the objective apprehension of the new; 
what is lost in logical consistency is made up in psychical 
intensity. And thus even forceful characters who have 
produced admirable results in some definite, practical sphere, 
and for this reason, being sure of victory, come to believe 
that they can dispense with all theory, are often found to 
be lacking in capacity of apperception for new facts of 
experience. They either dismiss the facts summarily or 
keep certain formulas and judgments ready, with which the 
new experience must be measured, whether for good or bad. 
They are only too much inclined to regard every innovation, 
so far as they grant it any significance at all, as only an old 
thought in a new garment. " Nothing new under the sun/ 5 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 47 

- — this is the constant magic formula for all uncomfortable 
facts and theories. "The good is not new, and the new is 
not good." Thus without thorough testing, following for 
the most part the first impression, such people are accustomed 
to decide quickly, with over-weening confidence. In this 
case the apperception is completed too easily and superfi- 
cially ; it leaves behind no strong feeling that influences the 
rest of the world of thought and arouses interest and will. 

If, therefore, the apperception is to proceed vigorously 
and correctly, then, not merely strong and active, but also 
significant, wide-reaching, and plastic groups of ideas in 
which there is an indwelling tendency for completion and 
perfection, must confront the object of apperception. For 
only in such cases do so many related elements rise into 
consciousness that the new is not falsified by chance ideas, 
but apprehended by that thought- complex to whose content 
it corresponds most closely. 

Yet, if it is to fulfil its end completely, the apperceiving 
thought-complex must by no means be lacking in care- 
ful elaboration and organization. Where the ideas do not 
stand in the right relation to one another, or where they 
suffer from obscurity and indefiniteness, there is to be seen 
that superficial facility of apperception which throws to 
gether the most heterogeneous elements, — that precipitate 
judging peculiar to uncritical minds. There may be in 
such apprehension a certain correctness ; but since the simi- 
lar and the opposed, the false and the true, are not sharply 
distinguished, the apperception is either precipitate or en- 
tirely false. Where, on the contrary, strong, disciplined 
thought weighs carefully that which is to be brought into 
relation with the new; where clear, studied, and well-united 
groups of ideas come into contact with it, there the apper- 
ception will often be slow, but it will be completed so much 



48 APPERCEPTION. 

the more correctly and certainly. Then, as a rule, it is not 
at all necessary that the apperceiving mass of thought be 
reproduced in its full extent and content, but it is sufficient 
that the conception, the law, the principle, stand in con- 
sciousness. The latter represent all the related ideas that 
make themselves felt as unconscious co-operating elements in 
the course of apperception. 

We saw that to the subject of apperception belong also 
the obscure psychical conditions, the feelings and obscure 
notions, that accompany the apperceiving ideas. This 
shows us what significance the whole mental and emotional 
condition has for the course of mental assimilation. Domi- 
nating states of mind that have no internal relation to the 
object of apperception, secret care and anxiety that disturb 
the spirit, may also prevent the strongest aids to appercep- 
tion from rising, thus making their force ineffective. In the 
life of every person come hours in which, to his own surprise, 
he maintains an unimpressionable and indifferent attitude 
towards the most interesting events and facts. A cer- 
tain bodily and mental tranquillity is then necessary to re- 
establish the equilibrium between the various psychical 
elements, if an unbiased apprehension of the new is to 
follow. Yet more : our inner life with all the feelings and 
inclinations, with the secret impulses and interests, which at 
the time stand above or near the threshold of consciousness, 
must receive a uniform impression, and this world of thought 
and feeling in which we live must be related to the content 
of the new ; in a word, the right mood must dominate. 
Then consciousness will be occupied with ideas that will 
ward off disturbing thoughts and efforts, and, by reason of 
their uniform tone of feeling, will greatly facilitate the 
reproduction of the right aids to apperception. The sphere 
in which the latter are to be sought approaches consciousness, 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 49 

and every element of its content may become a beginning 
member of a series of reproduced ideas. Finally, when im- 
portant individual members of these related products of con- 
sciousness rise especially high, anticipating the perception ; 
when a certain tension of the sense organs precedes the 
expected impression, and an increased power of attention is 
felt, then the favorable condition is present in which apper- 
ception may take place — the condition of expectation. 
Many spiritual arms are stretched out to receive that for 
which we are prepared, so that we assimilate more easily 
and more accurately than when surprised by a new experi- 
ence. We have now reached an important factor that is 
always present in active apperception, viz., the will. That 
a perception or a memory picture may be expected, or the 
mind incited to a fundamental apperception, it is often ne- 
cessary to have a vigorous action of the will, in addition to 
appropriate emotional states of mind. The will holds the 
perception firmly in consciousness until it is rightly recog- 
nized and understood. It controls the desires and feelings 
that affect the mind, so that the right helps to apperception 
may appear. Without an exercise of will the attention 
would soon flag. The reason that among men a failure to 
understand is so frequent, and that all new and epoch-mak- 
ing doctrines find so slow and so difficult a recognition, is, to 
a considerable extent, due to the want of good-will toward 
these subjects. This has been experienced by all great men 
who have been in advance of their time. This was experi- 
enced even by the Apostles of so victorious a cause as the 
gospel of Christ. Let us think of the foremost among ^hem, 
Paul, the great Apostle to the heathen. Few teachers have 
been so inspired and have preached the new faith so impres- 
sively as this chosen warrior of the Lord. How admirably 
he knows, how to arouse apperceiving ideas in his hearers j 



h ) APPEECEPTION. 

as when, for example, he reminds the Athenians of the un- 
known God, to whom they have unwittingly erected an al- 
tar ; of the splendid temples in whose halls the gods were to 
abide ; of their poets who sang of the divine origin of man. 
If, notwithstanding, his sermon found entrance into but 
limited circles, and was not understood by the great mass of 
Jews and heathens, such unbelief was not founded merely 
in the nature of their mental and emotional life. The Athen- 
ian pride of culture would not learn from the despised Jew, 
the legal pride of the Israelite would not accept any 
innovation, while in other places (Ephesus, Antioch, 
etc.) self-interest and envy closed the door of the heart 
to the gospel. Custom and inclination, desire and passion, 
and not least, indolence of will, very often make a man 
incapable of recognizing and receiving new truths. The in- 
telligent assimilation of strange truths, the transformation 
of one's own conviction, demands not a slight degree of 
mental exertion and force. In this case, to apperceive 
means to undergo victoriously an internal struggle. Such a 
mental struggle cannot be easily understood, however, by 
one whose heart is already bound up in other interests than 
those of the investigation of stern truth, by one who, on no 
account, will allow himself to be disturbed in the secure pos- 
session of an acquired good or an agreeable habit. Here 
the will does not determine the opinion, but the wish is 
father to the thought. Hence that which is regarded as lack 
of intelligence is not infrequently a defect of the will. To 
apperceive impartially and thoroughly, despite inclinations 
and wishes, at least in the spheres of science and ethics, is 
at bottom a moral act, and the prerogative of a strong 
character. 

Side by side with the psychical conditions, as they were 
presented above, must not be overlooked those physical pro- 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 51 

cesses that are connected with the former, and that in the 
process of apperception prove not less effective. It is highly 
probable that all our mental activity is accompanied by cor- 
responding nerve excitations ; indeed it is probable that a 
great part of our ideas would not be present without them. 
We are thinking not merely of the rise of sensations, in 
which that fact has for a long time been generally recog- 
nized, but we are thinking also of the union and reproduc- 
tion of ideas. The oftener, however, a nerve-current is 
called into exercise, so much the easier is the transmission. 
An effect remains from every excitation of the nerve and its 
central station, the ganglion cells, which puts the current into 
a condition to follow a renewed excitation more easily. 
Such "functional tendencies" towards the renewal of an 
excitation are of great significance for the course of apper- 
ception. If a similar idea enters consciousness, it will, by 
virtue of a remaining tendency, or disposition, renew an 
earlier similar nerve-excitation, and thereby facilitate the 
return of the psychical product corresponding to it, — that 
is to say, the apperceiving idea. The functional tendencies 
of nerves made active according to the laws of relationship 
may, according to this, conduce essentially to the awaken- 
ing of such ideas as hasten forward as aids to our apper- 
ception. And it is clear that the apperceiving activity 
within definite spheres of thought must be perfected the more 
surely and speedily, the more the corresponding excitations 
are exercised in certain nerve currents by frequent repetition, 
and the more undisturbed they decline. These functional 
tendencies attain special importance in the apperception of 
an expected sense impression. Then related ideas stand in 
consciousness, which are accompanied by the same physio- 
logical occurrences, though perhaps in a less degree, which 
once preceded their formation as physical condition and 



52 APPERCEPTION. 

cause. These advancing excitations of nerves and nerve- 
centers on the ground of acquired functional tendency, do 
not contribute as motor irritants to the intentional cessation 
of the action of sense organs, but they strengthen the expected 
sense-excitation and help it to apprehend more quickly. 
We become conscious of how much our bodily organs are 
concerned in the progress of apperception through the sensa- 
tions connected with it. 

In certain nerve activities essential conditions are given 
for the delay or prevention of an apperception, as well as 
for its successful and rapid completion. It is a fact that, 
after heavy, tedious illnesses which leave behind a general 
weakness of the body, and especially of the nerves, the 
duration of the apperception is particularly long. The same 
is true when one is in a condition of fatigue. As is well 
known, the blood continually brings to the nerves nourish- 
ing matter, which there undergoes a chemical change. The 
strength and quickness of this change are in proportion to 
the vigor with which the nerves are set in action through 
bodily or mental effort. The continuously flowing blood 
takes up those products of the change which could not be 
used in the future, and replaces them with new material. 
If, in consequence of long and difficult labor, the outlay is 
greater than the blood is able to replace, then arises that 
condition which is known as exhaustion. In this condition 
we feel our mental activity arrested to a significant degree. 
Notwithstanding the great effort of the will, and even with 
the presence of psychical conditions favorable to apper- 
ception, the assimilation of new perceptions, or ideas, 
will be completed but slowly and imperfectly. Indeed, it 
may be entirely omitted, if, in consequence of a lasting or 
transient disturbance of a nerve current, the corresponding 
physiological action is not accomplished, as when we say, 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 53 

" The nerves no longer act together." We then become 
actively conscious of how much the activity of the soul is 
dependent upon the co-operation of the central excitations 
and nerve-actions, since to attempt to do without those 
would be as vain as to attempt to play upon an instrument 
without strings. 

3. Significance of Apperception for the Mental 
Development of Man. 

Our text-books on psychology usually treat the subject of 
apperception in connection with that of internal perception, 
after sense-perception, reproduction, memory, imagination, 
the ego, and even judging and reasoning have already been 
treated. This might give rise to the idea that mental as- 
similation takes place rather late in the development of 
mind, and that it is limited to a definite epoch. 

This opinion has actually been voiced in a very deter- 
mined manner. It has been denied that apperception 
belongs to childhood, or to the school period of life, the 
claim being made that it is confined to the age of reflection. 
But those who say this, overlook the fact that passive 
apperceptions occur even in earliest childhood, and that the 
idea of apperception cannot be limited to the cases of 
intentional assimilation of new impressions. If appercep- 
tion means the grasping of new ideas by the aid of present 
similar ones, if it is the process of growth of the soul, 
then it belongs not only to one, but to all epochs of the 
mental development of man ; it must play a very important 
part in the sphere of inner growth, during the whole of life. 
Let us try to comprehend the significance of apperception 
in the mental development of the individual. 

The first great task proposed to the child's mind is that 
of learning to find its way in the world of perceptions ; 



54 APPERCEPTION. 

to master the world by learning to know it. It does not 
solve this problem in a strictly systematic manner, contem- 
plating, closely it may be, one object after the other, and 
thus proceeding gradually according to a definite plan from 
the parts to the whole. That is by no means possible. 
Perceptions, as a rule, come in masses and are too transient 
to give the child a chance to devote his particular attention 
to each one of them. Besides, he is not able to apprehend 
them sharply and correctly, owing to the imperfection of his 
senses and the poverty of his knowledge. And even if he 
were able to do this, it would be very impracticable to try 
to devote to all sensations the same sense-energy and 
attention. For, as the child is mostly occupied with more 
than one object, his perceiving and knowing would for a 
long time lag far behind his practical needs, and would 
never correspond to them. The child, on the contrary, 
takes possession of the outer world first as a whole, by 
being for the present satisfied *with an obscure general 
impression. From this he gradually selects and grasps the 
important elements one by one. His. choice is not deter- 
mined by logical reasons, but by his practical needs as 
determined by circumstances. Those objects and events 
which, as conditions of life, lie particularly near to the feel- 
ings and desires of the child (food and drink, lodging, 
dress, parents, etc.) or excite his interest in a vivid manner, 
are preferred above all others. When the remaining com- 
ponent parts of the total perception, at least for the time 
being, reach only the general field of consciousness, the 
preferred objects rise to the focus of consciousness. 1 Thus 
by degrees several clearer percepts rise out of the confused 
manifoldness of obscure general impressions ; the child 

1 See Wundt's Theory of Apperception in the present volume. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 55 

gains a number of fundamental ideas that are mostly char- 
acterized by great activity and powerful tone of feeling. 

For these perceptions are not heaped up like dead trea- 
sures, but almost as soon as aquired they become living 
forces that assist in the assimilation of new perceptions, 
thus strengthening the power of apprehension. They are the 
contents of the soul that now permanently assert themselves 
in the act of perception. For wherever it is at all possible, 
the child refers the new to the related older ideas. With 
the aid of familiar perceptions, he appropriates that which 
is foreign to him and conquers with the arms of apper- 
ception the outer world which assails his senses. Thus, 
for instance, Steinthal, 1 from his own observation, relates 
of a two-year-old girl, that she called the picture of spectral 
forms of women with long floating garments "birds," corn- 
stalks "trees," swimming swans "fishes," and mistook a 
flag that floated from the top of a house for a " white horse." 
Something similar to this is told by Lazarus of a child that 
had been brought up in the South; snow-flakes, for in- 
stance, that he saw for the first time, he called " butter- 
flies." And who does not know from his own experience 
how the child at first considers every man his "pa" or 
" daddy" or " father," every flying creature as "bird" (or 
whatever else the expression of the little ones may be), 
every plant as " tree " ; how he apperceives the lightning 
perhaps as a fiery swallow, the clouds as mountains, the 
the lights in the windows of a distant house in the darkness 
of the night as " peep eyes." Such false or limited apper- 
ception is peculiar not only to early childhood, but it asserts 
itself also later on. Let us listen to the report of an atten- 
tive observer of six -year-old children, who visit the zoo- 

1 Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft," p. 158. 



56 APPERCEPTION. 

logical garden for the first time. There is so much new 
presented to them that they are unable to carry away clear 
ideas of what they have seen. They must master the new 
impression as well as possible under the circumstances. 
And thus we are told that the little ones regarded the buffalo 
and aurochs as cows, ibexes and chamois simply as goats, 
the rhinoceros as an elephant, while they loudly and joyfully 
greeted the tiger with "kitty, kitty! " The ostrich was to 
them a big goose or a stork ; smaller exotic birds they called 
finches (for these birds had often been observed on class 
excursions) ; beavers, first mice, then fishes or frogs; and 
the seal was after long deliberation classified as a fish, but one 
" from another river." 1 Here we have by no means merely 
witty comparisons, as perhaps an adult would jestingly try 
to make, no toying with ideas, but earnest work of the child, 
who in his manner seeks to understand strange new impres- 
sions. He does not compare merely, but he straightway 
identifies the new with the familiar. According to a law of 
the mind that cannot be further derived, but only settled as 
a fact, he must work thus, if by degrees he is to change 
from a slave to a master of his external perceptions. In 
accordance with his mental nature, he cannot but practice 
usury with the acquired capital, he must assimilate new 
ideas with the present ones. The latter become the organs 
of the perceiving soul with which it grasps the manifold 
world of perception, articulates it, arranges it in accordance 
with the present store of ideas. 

Language 2 in this connection renders important services 

1 Lehmensick in Just's Praxis der Erziehungsschule, 1888, part II, 
p. 75. 

2 That the learning of the language is itself an apperception-process, 
Lazarus has shown in his Life cf the Soul (third edition), II., pp. 168- 
173. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 57 

to the mind. It is true that apperception is possible also 
without it ; as, for instance, the child in the two first years 
of his life refers throughout the new to the old, without 
always having a corresponding word at his command. But 
still apperception proceeds more surely and more easily, 
when the fundamental ideas are fixed by language. The 
name separates each one of them from other notions and 
holds it fast in memory, so that the ideas gain in clearness 
and liveliness, and can more easily assist in the acts of 
apperception. The word unites similar perceptions, holding 
them together in groups and enabling them to unite with the 
fundamental idea. Applied to new contents of conscious- 
ness, the word is an expression of accomplished appercep- 
tion. 

The word does indeed in certain cases rather hinder than 
further a right apperception. If it is a name, for instance, 
that belongs to a certain fundamental idea exclusively, if it 
signifies an individual, a single phenomenon and only this 
one, then the word does not form a far-reaching roof under 
which other related perceptions also can find a place, but it 
coincides merely with the apperceiving idea. When other 
perceptions are now joined with the latter, they of course 
having also their own names, the individual name is used as 
a generic name, so that the new idea is incorrectly named. 
(It is indifferent whether the child received the name from 
others or whether he formed it for himself.) A few exam- 
ples may serve to illustrate this. " A child that was begin- 
ing to talk, saw and heard a duck on the water, and said 
' quack.' After that, he called all birds and insects, on the 
one hand, and all the fluids, on the other, ' quack.' At last 
he called also coins ' quack,' after having seen the image of 
an eagle on a French sou. Thus, through gradual generaliz- 
ing (?) the child went so far as to designate a fly, a coin 



58 APPERCEPTION. 

and even wine by the same onomatopoetic word, although 
only the first perception contained the name-giving charac- 
teristic." 1 Such an extraordinarily superficial apperception 
can occur perhaps only in the first months of life, yet simi- 
lar processes repeat themselves regularly also in later years. 
When in all earnest the child at first gives to foreign moun- 
tains, rivers and creeks the names of his native place; 
when Schiller, for instance, as a little boy declared all rivers 
of his native state to be "Neckars," or another three-year- 
old boy who had before that seen from his window daily the 
Syra creek, called the river near his home, upon seeing it for 
the first time, ' ' Elstersyra," - here as in many other instances 
we meet with restricted apperception, i.e., an apprehension 
where the most varied observations are with the aid of a 
name traced back to certain individual ideas. The child will 
certainly correct his apprehension later on ; he will frequently 
have to unlearn. But this drawback is not serious when we 
consider the fact that he is really appropriating the new and 
making it subject to himself, that he is learning to rule 
the impressions of the outer world. Besides, there is not 
much to be done against such a restricted apperception, at 
least not in early childhood. It corresponds to the nature 
of the child's mind, and is mostly performed without the 
knowledge or assistance of the teacher. It does not even 
appear advisable to give to the child from the beginning the 
corresponding word for every new perception : he would not 
be able to remember all the names for the multitude of ex- 
ternal impressions. But, where confusion is likely to result, 
some persons would meet the child's urgent inquiries for the 
names of things in another manner : in the earliest period of 
development they tell the child the generic name of many ho- 

i Preyer, The soul of the child, I. E. S., Vol. IX., p. 90. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 59 

mogeneous objects, and not that of the individual or the 
species. They speak to their little ones, not of the birch, oak, 
linden, pine, fir, but of the tree. For the swallow, the finch, the 
sparrow, the starling, the name bird or a still more childlike 
expression is for a time sufficient. In this case the name of 
the apperceiving idea presents a far-reaching roof under 
which numerous related perceptions may collect ; the child 
transfers the generic name to similar notions that really be- 
long to it, so that unlearning will not be necessary later 
on. Homogeneous perceptions unite most easily to a 
single indefinite idea, which manifests all that was common 
to the former, but without the distinguishing characteristics, 
and which therefore presents a silhouette rather than a 
picture of the objects. A general idea, or picture, arises, 
with whose aid related things or events are apperceived. 
As the child, however, gets into the habit of tracing back a 
great number of homogeneous perceptions to relatively few 
generic names, he makes a very important advance. " For, 
first of all, the infinite variety of outer and adjacent things 
that come to meet the attention of the mind and threaten 
nearly to overwhelm it, is so greatly simplified through the 
combination of the whole series of individual ideas into rela- 
tively few general pictures, that even the less vigorous child- 
mind can soon manage to find the way through it. Then, 
however, a substantial preparation is made for conscious 
thinking proper, through this formation of general ideas, 
and its material is brought to the mind not in crude, sensuous 
directness, but already logically prepared in some degree." 1 
Finally, the child is enabled with the aid of his general 
pictures soon to follow the linguistic intercourse of adults 
with understanding, and also to take part in it. 2 

1 Pfisterer's Paedagogische Psychologie, p. 95. 

2 If country children on entering school have less power of expres- 
sion than city children, the reason for it is to he found, not only in the 



60 APPERCEPTION. 

The fact that the child with the aid of fundamental ideas 
or general impressions intellectually conquers a great part 
of his environment, has given rise to the opinion that man 
perceives first the general, the genus, and then proceeds 
from this to the cognizance of the particular, the single 
thing. 1 

That is just as erroneous as the current assumption that he 
proceeds from the species, in order to elevate himself 
gradually in a strictly logical manner to the genus. It is not 
with the naming and discerning of the species that he begins 
to ascend regularly to the genus, but with obscure and 
general impressions that are mostly held fast and connected 
temporarily by a generic name. But as little as the word is 
identical in meaning with the idea it signifies, so little does 
the generic name contain the cognition of the general, the 
rational. It includes, on the contrary, for a long time 
many similar ideas, from which later a conception-content 
is first gained through discernment of the species. The 
seeming conception of the general first awakens only the 

want of exercise in speaking, but also in the circumstance that they have 
not learned as many expressions for the general notions current in the 
family conversation, and therefore cannot express themselves as readily 
as city children who have grown up in the midst of a more lively inter- 
course. But the apperception of the country child is often the more 
vigorous and original because of this fact. 

* Compare Sigwartfs Logic, I., p. 49: " Quite contrary to the common 
doctrine of the formation of concepts, the general precedes the special 
with individuals, as it does in language, just as an incomplete idea pre- 
cedes a complete one, the latter presupposing more far-reaching discrimi- 
nation." According to this, S. looks upon the indefinite apprehension of 
the child as a logical activity that selects from many perceivable charac- 
teristics the essential ones. But that is not the case. It is a result of a 
psychical impotency, not of a logical capacity. That man descends in 
the course of his mental development from the general to the particular, 
can be admitted only as far as the name is concerned, not with reference 
to the contents of the developing thought. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 61 

generic name, which is made use of for psychological 
reasons. We have at first not general, deeply penetrating 
thought, but rather a somewhat indefinite perception. 

For it is undoubtedly true that the facility of apperception 
in earliest childhood necessarily results in a merely super- 
ficial or rather one-sided apprehension of things. So long 
as the child must trace the most varied perceptions back to a 
relatively few fundamental notions or general impressions, 
so long will he have no regard for an all-sided observation 
and keen discrimination of single objects. It is sufficient 
for a time that he grasps one or the other characteristic of 
the latter clearly, thus holding fast the idea. Often even this 
is lacking, and he retains only an obscure sensuous impres- 
sion, especially when the name was offered too early. Such 
wholly or partially empty word-shells often fill themselves 
later with the right thought-content ; often, however, they 
assert themselves unchanged in consciousness. Thus the 
child tells his playmate, perhaps with triumphant pride : 
44 Our house has got a mortgage on it and yours hasn't," 
thinking that a mortgage must be something wonderfully 
fine and excellent ; or it happens to him as to the Berlin 
market-woman who called her colleague a " confounded 
differential tariff " with the intention of saying something 
very hurtful. Makeshift apperceptions, i. e., assimila- 
tions without sufficient or correct apperception aids, arise, 
which are always equivalent to misunderstandings. Then 
it may happen, to quote a few examples from life, that 
the child understands by »* dressed beef," beef in some 
sort of apparel ; by " guardian," a person who takes care of 
the garden; by " salon," a liquor shop; and forms such 
words as "exercise clerk" (excise), "upper glass" 
(opera). In short, as the child is lacking in a rich, logically 
formed sphere of thought, he fails to grasp the objects of 



62 APPERCEPTION. 

the external world in a manner strictly objective, but appre- 
hends them subjectively ; he sees them in the light of his 
limited experience, his feelings and inclinations ; he asks 
more for the worth they have for himself (for his ego) than 
for their meaning. To this then corresponds also the real 
or imaginary intercourse that he has with them. As he now 
sees no difference between body and soul, but looks upon 
the feeling and desiring, the acting and moving body as 
his ego, so he conceives also his relation to outer objects 
in a very childlike manner. He apperceives them with the 
aid of his idea of himself, i. e., his ego-idea. As his body 
evinces life in arbitrary motion, he adjudges personal being 
to all that moves really or apparently of itself. For to show 
life and motion is to him identical. He places external ob- 
jects on one and the same stage with himself, and ascribes to 
them his mental states ; he looks upon them as sensitive and 
volitional beings. 1 Hence the lively interest of the little ones 
for animals and plants, the affectionate intercourse with 
them, the understanding they have for their real or imagi- 
nary conditions. Hence the sharp ear of youth for the lan- 
guage of birds, which they, "happy in their unconscious 
wisdom," apperceive after their own poetic fashion. 

When, however, the child thus ascribes his own mental 
states to outer things, when in early years he discovers so 
many new and mysterious things in nature, everything may 
appear to him in the vagueness of the fairy tale ; at any rate, 
his apprehension will not be sober and clear as with adults. 2 

1 A child not yet two years old, said pityingly on seeing the dripping 
plants : " Tree cry, cry — oh" ! 

2 This explains also many strange and almost marvellous incidents of 
the days of our childhood. A friend of mine told me, for instance, the fol- 
lowing incident of his boyhood: " Close to our house, near the limits of 
the village, were the grassy plains of the Elster. There was a bowling- 
alley, and on one of its sides grew weeds, celandines, nettles, thistles, and 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 63 

We comprehend how the child builds up for himself such 
a world of fancy also in playing ; how the boy can have in- 
tercourse with his wooden horse for hours as with a trusty 
and intelligent playmate ; how the little girl can nurse her 
dolls in full earnest with a truly touching tenderness. We 
understand also the great joy, the lively interest with which 
they both listen to the fairy-tales of the mother. For those 
are tales that lead them into their dearest thought-regions, 
stories that they anticipate with their whole world of per- 
ception and feeling. 

Thus, early childhood is the great harvest time in which 
the child apperceivingly takes possession of the outer world 
in its principal traits with the aid of fundamental notions 
and general impressions ; but just because he always refers 
the new to the old, he grasps it very one-sidedly and sub- 
jectively. It is the time when he prefers to have a fanciful 
intercourse with the outer world and to meet a fanciful 
apprehension and representation of it with a peculiar under- 
standing and a lively interest. Finally, so far as his rela- 
tion to the mental, the religious, the moral world is 



dandelions, in exuberant profusion. This place, whose damp ground was 
hidden from the rays of the sun, had an uncommon charm for me, as I 
imagined behind its wildly entangled world of leaves marvellous things 
of all sorts. I always went with a feeling of awe, and yet returned with 
the nope and premonition that I should there discover strange things. 
One morning the dew still sparkled on the beautifully formed leaves of 
the lady's mantle (alchemilla) of which I was very fond, and to which my 
father to my chagrin had given the very prosaic name " goose slipper." 
Everything had an enchanting interest. Just then a big green frog with 
eyes that glittered like gold ran toward that chaos of leaves. The soli- 
tude of the place, my own lively feeling, made me see in the frog a little 
mannikin dressed in a green glittering gown. Often after that I tried to 
see the same again or at least to spy his little house." When the same 
boy, at the age of six, came for the first time to the city, he mistook the 
red glove at the sign of the glove-maker for the bloody hand of a giant. 
The red, glistening wheels of a locomotive appeared to him fiery and 
glowing. 



64 APPERCEPTION. 

concerned, his apperceiving ideas prove themselves here also 
to be standard and determining factors. To them belong 
in the first place the ideas that are associated with sensuous 
feelings and aspirations. For even if, in the intercourse 
with nature and men, nearly all feelings and interests awake 
in the child, such as interest for beautiful forms and moral 
judgments, sympathy for the welfare and sorrow of others, 
and joy in intellectual activity, we may still assert that 
during the time when the child yet identifies his ego with 
his body, the sensual feelings and desires predominate in 
him. They very often influence his moral judgment regard- 
ing his own conduct or the actions of others, so that he 
looks upon that as right which is pleasing to him, and that 
as bad which he fears. Is that man or that animal good 
or bad ? — This oft-repeated question of the child fre- 
quently betrays more sensuous interest than ethical feel- 
ing. And thus for a long time the sensuous would pre- 
vent the ethical from asserting itself rightly, and would 
control the juvenile soul exclusively and absolutely, if from 
the beginning, under normal conditions, another important 
sphere of thought did not meet it, and hinder and restrain 
it; namely, the world of ideas that clings to the child's 
ideal picture of his parents. Here also the sensuous feel- 
ings and desires do, to be sure, often assert themselves. 
For, why does the picture of the parents stand so vividly 
before the soul of the child? First of all, most likely, 
because he sees himself bound to them with his whole being, 
because they are the source of his well-being, because he 
receives reward and ■ punishment from them. The rever- 
ence for father and mother is at the beginning very closely 
united with the sensuous feelings of fear and dependence. 
But these sensuous feelings and relations that give so high 
a motive-worth to the picture of the parents for early child- 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 65 

hood, are, at the same time, just because they are awakened 
by ethical personalities, always indissolubly united with 
the intimations of the high ethical worth of the parents, and 
the ethical order of the world which they represent. That 
father and mother are more than mere supporters, powerful 
authorities, soon dawns in the consciousness, even if only 
in an obscure feeling. And thus the dominating idea of 
the parents includes both a sensuous and an ethical total of 
feeling, and that too in such close connection that it would 
mostly be very difficult to determine where the one begins 
and the other ends. This ideal picture is to the child that 
grows up in happy, honorable family relations, the embodied 
morality, the model of all that is good and right, the living 
conscience. Wherever a moral judgment of the worth of 
the disposition of others, or a decision in a matter of his own 
conduct is to be induced, the question that lies nearest to 
the child is : What do father and mother say about it ? 
Who has not observed one of the little ones in such a state 
that he is not sure how he is to regard his own action or 
that of another ? He looks inquiringly from father to 
mother, to read in their countenances the right, and when 
they give an unmistakable and clear answer, then his 
ethical judgment is decided at once. When he has done 
wrong, he avoids his parents : he shuns their look and 
sight, he shrinks from the thought that makes his conduct 
appear wrong and punishable. Thus, where the sensuous 
world of thought and feeling does not assert itself exclu- 
sively, the unspoiled child apperceives sentiments and 
actions mostly through the ideal he has of .his parents, 
which stands before his soul as an ideal or pattern. It is 
also through his ideal of them that he gradually gains a 
notion of God and of right inner relations to him. 

Let us accompany the child further, to the next stage of 



66 APPERCEPTION. 

development, which reaches about from the seventh to the 
tenth year. The child enters upon the boy and girl age : 
he goes to school. The world of his previous experiences 
may be said to enter with him into the little school-room 
— for in that sphere of thought does early instruction 
mostly move — and is met by a new, strange world, one 
that lies beyond the limits of the home. But the 
objects of perception do not continue to assail his senses in 
masses and without plan ; they come before his eye in a 
regulated procession, set by the teacher's art into narrow 
frames that separate them from each other and make their 
careful contemplation possible. Hitherto the child has 
given himself up, in the free play of his fancy, to outer 
impressions, letting himself be guided by them ; now he is to 
absorb those perceptions in earnest labor and to make them 
serve his purposes. Hitherto he was accustomed to jump 
from one object of interest to another and to follow the 
direction of the strongest sense impressions ; now he is to 
learn to fix his attention and to direct it for some time to 
certain objects of instruction, and to repel disturbing exci- 
tations of the senses. He does not always succeed in this 
unaccustomed " concentration of consciousness." Often he 
stands dull and indifferent before the objects that he is 
to view, and which the teacher believes to have been well- 
chosen and well-presented ; he looks, yet perceives nothing ; 
he talks about the things and yet does not really grasp them ; 
they remain indifferent to him. Attention then quickly 
flags. At another time, he cannot gaze long enough to 
satisfy his desire : he is all eyes and ears, and he departs 
from the object of his attention with regret. It has be- 
witched him, because he has been fond of it from child- 
hood, or it has received peculiar illumination. Thus, it 
is not the excitation of the senses which here holds the 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 67 

attention, but the great number of apperceiving ideas that 
were awakened by the object observed. These ideas often 
invest the newly entering perception with so strong a motive- 
worth that the will springs forth and holds fast in conscious- 
ness what at the beginning was noticed only involuntarily. 
With the aid of the will, the mind of the child grasps new 
experiences in the light of past ones. 1 And, therefore, even 
here we cannot yet speak of a complete, purely intellectual, 
apprehension of external objects. To be sure, it becomes, 
especially in consequence of instruction, gradually more 
correct, more varied and clear: still, it is yet so closely 
united with subjective notions that it may be considered, on 
the whole, a fanciful apprehension of nature. 

Not always can the objects of which instruction treats be 
presented to the child in natura. Pictures then take their 
place. It is commonly supposed that they produce much 
the same impression as the real things. But that is the case 



1 An incident from school-room practice may serve as an example. 
The teacher speaks with the little ones of the first school year about 
the sun. After having attended to the necessary observations, he wants 
to make them understand that the sun shines, warms, is in the sky, 
and is created by God. The teacher does his best to make this clear 
to the children — he finds it impossible. They repeat all that he said, 
but it seems as if it were so strange to them, that it must be uttered 
without their really believing it. Then a child drops the remark : " The 
sun is God's lamp." Immediately the conversation receives an entirely 
new impulse. Numerous ideas awake and press to the front, thus placing 
the object in the right light. Now the children see God light his 
lamp, as it were, early in the morning, so that his children can see 
during the day ; they see him blow it out in the evening when all go to 
bed, or turn it down when it is dim. That the sun shines as the light of 
heaven, that he brightens all and gives us light to see our work, that 
darkness covers the earth when he ceases to beam — this and much more 
is now clear to the child, and has become his mental property. In a very 
childlike form, to be sure, but when the little ones cannot grasp the 
objects of the outer world in other than a fanciful way, why not let them 
do so in this manner ? 



68 APPERCEPTION. 

only under certain conditions, for even the ability to under- 
stand drawings or to interpret pictures is an acquired power. 
The eye sees in reality only surfaces and outlines ; of itself 
it knows nothing of solid bodies and perspective. That is 
proved by the statements of those who, having been born 
blind, have later received their sight. They at first regard 
paintings simply as colored surfaces, without the least 
thought of perspective, or of the solid bodies thus repre- 
sented. 1 "When we understand drawings and interpret 
pictures, we do it largely with the help of the ideas we 
already possess : we fill in the outlines until they become 
objects ; we lend life and feeling to the dead forms ; we put 
our own thoughts and emotions into the variegated world of 
pictures. And the more or less we are able, in this way, to 
put in, the more or less do we read out in return. So it is 
also with the child. Even though he may early have had 
practice in the comprehension of the simplest sketches, 2 
still he understands a drawing only to the extent that he 
has already seen and experienced something similar. 
Whenever the picture goes beyond his range of observation, 
beyond his experience, he does not see what he should, 
even though he have the best of intentions. For all com- 
prehension of pictures is an apperceiving, a grasping and 
interpreting of them by means of strong and clear ideas 
which we have already secured from real objects and 
events. 

A majority of the objects to be studied in school cannot 
be presented in natura, neither can their pictures be ob- 

1 Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, pp. 466, 484. 

2 My oldest little girl, even at the end of her first year, designated the 
leaves and tendrils upon the window-curtains as tree. When, in her twenty- 
second month, I laid hefore her one after another the photographic pic- 
tures of Juno Ludovisi and of Zeus from Otricoli, she immediately called 
them " Mama" and " Man " (or " Papa," " pretty Papa "J. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 69 

tained ; many others also cannot be perceived through the 
senses at all. The child is then compelled to look within 
himself for the means of apperception. " Instruction can 
thus impart only words ; the ideas for which the words stand, 
and without which they could mean nothing, must come from 
within the child himself." " Most of the process of learning 
consists simply in understanding words, i.e., the pupil, by 
means of the mental store which he has already collected, 
puts meaning into the word she hears." x Hence every lecture, 
every narrative, every question of the teacher, is a demand 
upon the pupil to connect the word, which in itself is mean- 
ingless and empty, with concrete notions or thoughts already 
in his possession ; they each require the reproduction of old 
ideas which stand in close relation to the subject of instruc- 
tion. Thus pupils think and feel what is peculiar to them- 
selves 2 every time they are taught anything, each in his 
own individual manner according to the fund of knowledge 
it hand. 3 "But it is these hidden thoughts and feelings, 
running quietly along beside those of the teacher," that ex- 
plain the words which are heard, and fill them with a con- 
crete living content ; they form the background upon which 
ihe new rises, clear and sharp; they are the apperceiving 
Iovcq by the aid of which the new is made intelligible. 

For instance, if a pupil is to follow intelligently an historical 

1 Herbart's Padagogische Schriften, published by Willmann, Vol. II., 
pp. 541, 605. 

2 Hildebrand, Vom deutschen Sprachunterricht, 3d edition, p. 54. 

s Compare also the following from Emerson: "What can we see or 
acquire, but what we are ? You have seen a skillful man reading Virgil. 
Well, that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take the 
book into your hands, and read your eyes out ; you will never find what I 
find. If any ingenious reader would have a monopoly of the wisdom or 
delight he gets, he is as secure now the book is Englished, as if it were 
imprisoned in the Pelews tongue." 



70 APPERCEPTION. 

or geographical lecture, the first essential condition is that he 
be able to give to what he hears a definite concrete basis, to 
transport himself easily into distant times and places. But 
how can that come about? If we examine closely to see 
where our thoughts wandered as we, in our youth, for the 
first time, heard the story of the beautiful garden of Eden 
and of the first human beings ; as we marched with the Israel- 
ites through the Red Sea and encamped upon Mt. Sinai ; as 
with Moses we looked from the heights of Mt. Nebo into the 
promised land, where flowed milk and honey ; we make the 
surprising discovery that it was at our own home with its val- 
leys and mountains, where our thoughts dwelt ; that we trans- 
ported the woods and fields of grain, the deserts and fertile 
plains, the houses and wells, the men and animals of sacred 
and profane history to our own neighborhood ; and, while 
we were travelling in distant countries over sterile land and 
mountainous regions, over seas and rivers whose names had 
never before sounded in our ears, we were nevertheless all the 
time at home ; we pictured foreign places clearly by means 
of those with which we were already familiar. One is likely 
to be reminded, by this fact, of the imaginative faculty, and 
to rejoice over its great activity among children, who can 
so easily bring the most distant objects within their horizon. 
But it is insufficient to refer a process to a special and won- 
derful faculty, when it can be explained much more naturally 
by a universal law of psychology, and shown to be an entirely 
normal and necessary phenomenon of mental life. When 
we transported ourselves into an unknown and distant region 
of Bible History, or rather created it in our minds, there 
came to the help of the new names certain familiar and similar 
notions ; namely, the names and images of objects at home. 
The names of sacred places, the ideas of persons and events 
in sacred history, called up related groups of ideas (i. e., those 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION, 71 

produced at some time by the immediate environment) and 
united with them, until the two became thoroughly fused, and 
formed a single group. Thus the new part that the narrative 
contained was interpreted and digested by the help of ideas 
already in our possession ; and we must therefore credit 
apperception with that which is usually ascribed to the 
activity of the imagination. 

Bogumil Goltz, who is so well acquainted with and ap- 
preciative of child life, describes such childish apperception 
in a very attractive manner. When for the first time, to 
his great joy, he came into the possession of a variegated 
woodpecker, brilliant in all colors, he imagined heaven to be 
a wood and meadow in which there was nothing but tame 
woodpeckers, which could be taken up by the angels in 
their hands (Buch der Kindheit, 3d edition, p. 42.) ; like- 
wise, later, he was accustomed, by the aid of his home 
experiences, to picture concretely each city and country under 
discussion in Geography and History. He says, " I saw 
especially Jerusalem from the beginning always in the same 
light, the natural scenery, weather, time of day and year 
remaining the same ; the streets were unpaved, but fabu- 
lously wide and composed of hard, sanely soil ; the houses were 
low and comparatively large, being separated from one an- 
other by spacious yards ; an indescribably dreamy quiet 
rested upon the whole ; there was no work, no manufacturing, 
no police, no trading; all was in a state of pious, contem- 
plative reflection in the observance of the Sabbath and 
the worship of Jehovah." 

At Easter when the snow was melting and the streets 
of Konigsberg were flooded, "when all the fields far and 
near were covered by a countless number of lakes, and all 
the granaries and houses appeared in the water like a 
northern Venice, I had a view of the first waters and the 



72 APPERCEPTION. 

flood, of Noah's ark, and all of Genesis besides ; I then 
reviewed in mind and sense all the diluvian and ante-diluvian 
stories, and the days of creation." 

The author of this book cannot refrain from adding to the 
interesting reminiscences of this friend of children a few from 
his own youth. He was accustomed, just as Goltz , to reach a 
clear understanding of the facts of sacred history by asso- 
ciating distant localities and events with those at home. 
When, for example, the story of the creation was studied in 
school, his childish fancy pictured chaos to be similar to 
such a flood as was often caused by the Saale river at a 
certain place, in the centre of which was a pond surrounded 
by gloomy linden and willow trees. The mist that arose 
from the water mornings and evenings was the Spirit of 
God that hovered over the waters. On the shore of the 
Saale where there were many reeds, Moses was exposed in 
his. little basket, while his sister in a neighboring field 
watched the fate of the little fellow. 

From the same stream arose the seven fat and lean kine 
of Pharoah ; at the point where it was particularly deep, the 
Israelites marched through the Red Sea ; there the Egyptian 
army was swallowed up by the returning floods. Mt. Par- 
nitz, rising rather abruptly on one side, appeared to me as 
Mt. Sinai on which the law was given amid thunder and 
lightning, and at its foot the people of Israel were encamped 
in the desert (though fertile) valley of the Saale. The same 
meadow in which the Lord appeared to Moses in the burn- 
ing bush saw also the shepherds of Bethlehem tending their 
flocks on Christmas night, and heard the song of the 
heavenly hosts. I remember still more vividly the dark, 
old stable — it has long since been removed — upon which 
I fixed as the birthplace of the Saviour. 

When the temple of the Jews was mentioned, I brought to 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 73 

mind our village church; there the aged Simeon sang his 
song of praise, and at the altar, where each year the 
examination of candidates for confirmation was held, the 
twelve -year-old Jesus disputed with the learned scribes. 
The town-hall was first the prison, then Joseph's dwelling ; 
the royal palace (a large inn) , in which he interpreted the 
dreams of Pharoah, stood opposite it facing the public 
square ; and the house of Potiphar was on the same street. 
Joseph's brothers passed along this street and stood trem- 
bling at the door of the town-hall as they were to answer for 
the theft of the cup ; and here also was the spot on which 
the brothers recognized each other with much emotion. 
The dwelling of the high priest, Caiaphas, was a spacious 
building, the guardhouse, whose large hall, was formerly 
occupied by sessions of the court ; Jesus was brought there, 
and in the entry Peter denied his Lord. Naturally enough 
Pilate lived just opposite to the high-priest's palace. As I 
thought of Christ's cross as standing by a garden-wall upon 
the brow of a hill, so I imagined His grave to be in a certain 
yard near by. But the road from Jerusalem to Jericho led 
along past the cross, for the man who fell among thieves 
went doivn towards Jericho. A few steps distant, in a wide 
path with some gardens on either side, lay the stone upon 
which Jacob laid his weary head, as he was fleeing into 
Mesopotamia. Then came the place in which I had located 
the garden of Paradise. Adam and Eve wandered about in 
it ; in the centre stood the tree of knowledge, and the guilty 
couple fled behind yonder bush when God reminded them 
of His commandment. From this point one could see the 
Galgenberg, where Cain slew his brother; the Birkenhain, 
where Isaac was to have been sacrificed ; and in the distant 
horizon Mt. Nebo appeared, from which Moses looked over 
into the promised land. 



74 APPERCEPTION. 

These recollections show that the. child's conception 
compresses within narrow bounds many facts that are 
widely separated in time and space — a truth which is 
entirely in accord with the limited circle of ideas that he 
brought with him into the school. To be sure, it must be 
admitted that an understanding of some of the stories was 
not acquired in the best way, that the Bible picture's received 
a local coloring and many non-essential and incorrect char- 
acteristics. 

But all these defects are counterbalanced by the single 
fact that the new knowledge was apperceived with certainty, 
that the words of the teacher did not remain empty, but 
produced brightly colored, living pictures in the child's 
mind. It is related of Byron, that his conception of the 
classical regions of the Homeric poems, which he secured by 
viewing them in person, was far inferior in impressiveness 
and beauty to that which he had already formed of those 
places by the help of his home environment. Thus we see 
that, at times, apperception may be so vivid that it at least 
equals perception in the clearness and force of ideas. But 
whatever the childish mind has once created so uncon- 
sciously — for of course reference is not here made to any 
conscious seeking on his part after corresponding pictures 
from his environment — has impressed itself too deeply 
upon him to allow reflection at a later time to alter and cor- 
rect everything. Of course by means of illustrations, de- 
scriptions, and study, one's youthful apperceptions may be 
corrected ; but when I examine carefully to determine which 
mental pictures rise into my consciousness involuntarily, 
first, and most readily, at the mention of the Garden of 
Eden, Golgotha and Jerusalem, I find that they are my 
earliest notions, and that later knowledge has succeeded in 
changing them but little. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 75 

An historical narrative or geographical description requires 
of the pupil not only a vivid representation of distant places, 
but also a clear idea of strange customs, of strange 
persons and their experiences, their thoughts and emotions. 
Here again the child must look within himself in order to fill 
the words that are heard with a concrete meaning. This 
happens when he looks back over his own experience, 
such as his home in the main has furnished him, over the 
subjective and objective events of his life, and by their help 
transports himself into historical times and conditions, among 
strange customs and usages. 

The more scanty and inadequate these apperceiving ideas 
are, the more defective and naive will be his comprehension 
of the newly acquired information. Misconceptions are 
certain to occur, as when one boy thought that God made 
Adam out of potato-dumplings, and that the Angel of 
Paradise held a large Schwarle (i. e., board, instead of 
Scliwert, meaning sivord) in his hand. Or the apperceptions 
are altogether too childish, as when a pupil thought that 
Jacob might easily have been run over by the cars while 
•sleeping under the open sky, and that Joseph became the 
Egyptian king's "apprentice" when he was elevated by 
aim to office. 

It will always be especially difficult to arouse apperceiving 
ideas for the thoughts and emotions of historical characters. 
In such cases it is best to direct the child's attention to his 
£>wn inner experiences, and allow him to linger in thought 
upon those moments when he was moved with anxiety and 
dread, or fear and repentance ; when the voice of conscience 
lifted itself to punish, or the satisfaction arising from a kindly 
and effective deed rejoiced the heart. An occasional quiet 
return into one's own inner world, such as history, when 
taught with tact, can cause, not only teaches us to under- 



76 APPERCEPTION. 

stand better what passes in the souls of others, but leads 
gradually also to right self-knowledge, which is the first 
condition of self-control. 

Thus those numerous ideas and experiences which the 
child has secured mainly through apperception are them- 
selves in turn active in instruction as apperceiving agents. 
They give the proper tone and meaning to the words of the 
teacher; they are the material by means of which the 
youthful mind gradually builds for itself a new historical 
world : truly a great work ! 

But soon books come to the teacher's aid ; the child must 
learn to comprehend fully new thoughts from the printed 
page without assistance from others. That is a far more 
difficult task than to convert oral language into mental 
images. For all reading involves a threefold apperception ; 
first, a series of letters or word-pictures must be perceived, 
or recognized as more or less familiar ; then the correspond- 
ing series of sounds ; and third, the group of ideas for' 
which these symbols stand. When we perform these three 
acts of recognition simultaneously, and associate them with 
one another, we understand what we read. The child, at 
the age under consideration, is not so successful in such 
efforts as the adult. As a rule he is not able to recognize 
the three series at one time, and when he nevertheless 
attempts it, while he is directing his attention to the mean- 
ing of the words, frequently the result is "guessing," which 
is a false apperception of the series of letters and sounds. 
He usually prefers, therefore, to concentrate his mind 
upon the sounds first, and reads the words without fully 
comprehending their connection. The apperception of most 
of the content follows later; i. e., the child must look once 
more at the words and examine them with special reference 
to their meaning, if the thought is to be entirely revealed to 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 77 

him. He cannot*, then, immediately understand a story 
which he himself reads ; whereas the same words, if related 
by the teacher, are instantly grasped. It is the privilege 
only of older children to perceive readily and easily the 
meaning of what they read. 

From what has preceded, we see that the more thorough 
the comprehension of the numerous new ideas is, i. e., the 
more correct and numerous the connections into which the 
related contents of the mind have entered, the easier becomes 
the logical arrangement and perfecting of the knowledge 
acquired. The indistinct general notions, which, as we saw, 
being favored by the names of genera, are characteristic of 
childhood, receive now sharper outlines and a richer content. 
Let us explain the origin of these general notions clearly 
by an example. 

As long as the child in early youth saw only red centi- 
folias he imagined all roses to be red and full. Then in a 
field somewhere he found a bush with similar flowers, but 
they were neither red nor filled. That seemed strange to 
him, and for a moment he was in doubt whether he had 
before him an entirely new plant, or one already familiar. 
For, the related idea of the centifolia, which was repro- 
duced by the new observation, differed from it in several 
striking particulars. But however strange this may have 
seemed at first, there were decidedly more characteristics in 
which the two agreed than in which they differed. And 
therefore the mind (in accordance with its peculiar nature, 
which everywhere struggles for unity and order among its 
ideas) emphasized, as the essential part, that which was 
common to the two perceptions, and classed the new under 
the old as being similar to it. The child expressed this con- 
clusion in the words, " That is a rose too, but a white and 
simple one." In spite of several points of contrast, he 



78 APPERCEPTION. 

united the new perception with the old idea, and applied the 
name rose to the former because it had too much in common 
with the latter to allow their complete separation. Had the 
name of the genus, rose, been given to him simultaneously 
with the new perception, the apperception would have taken 
place much more easily and quickly. But at all events it 
was not the result of a special act of the will, of consciously 
directed thought ; the mind created rather the general notion 
while involuntarily observing the content of the individual 
notions that were fused. Further, neither of the two was 
able to assert a superiority over the other ; wherefore it re- 
mains doubtful which should be regarded as subject, which 
as object of the apperception. 

But this process of apperception will be altered now, since 
in the course of time the child's experience and mental 
capacity increase ; for he becomes acquainted with new 
species of the rose, for instance the yellow and the moss 
roses, and observes them more minutely. Every new sim- 
ilar perception is then welcomed by a related group of ideas 
in the general concept, which is superior to the new percep- 
tion in the extent and strength of its connections. When a 
perception joins such a group, it surrenders its independent 
existence in order to enrich the apperceiving notions with 
one or more new properties. Each one of these new ob- 
servations, therefore, enriches and perfects the concept rose, 
and when the latter contains most of the essential character- 
istics, the child may be said to have the concept rose. It 
contains many non-essentials also, but, on account of the 
differences among them, they cannot rise to the degree of 
clearness attained by those elements common to all the 
notions of the genus. While in early youth this fusion of a 
new idea with a related older one took place wholly uncon- 
sciously (although it was in obedience to certain laws of 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 79 

logic), it now becomes a conscious act. Some reflection 
precedes the apperception: the chifd draws conclusions, he 
passes judgments, he thinks. The final judgment is the 
simplest expression of the completed .apperception. When 
he says, "That too (i. e., the moss rose) is a rose," it 
means simply that the subject (namely, the new perception 
which at first could not be classed) has been apperceived by 
the predicate (the notion rose, already at hand). We shall 
later on consider the fact that concepts arising in this man- 
ner possess, on account of their greater perfection, far 
greater apperceiving power than the indistinct general no- 
tions of childhood. 

While the child is growing intellectually, he is making 
progress ethically as well. We have already seen that the 
ruling sphere of ideas and emotions determines in the main 
the moral insight of the human being. He usually judges 
his own moral worth and that of others according to what 
he himself loves, or what he wishes and longs for for him- 
self. There is, therefore, no doubt but that in early youth, 
as well as in infancy, the feelings and interests of sense 
influence to a considerable extent the moral consciousness 
of man. Indeed they can become the one controlling group 
of ideas among bad and uneducated children; with these 
anything is permissible that pleases. On the other hand, 
in the case of the well-trained child, they are subordinated 
more and more to the ideal example of the parents. He no 
longer follows blindly this authority, to which he has always 
been subject. But by comparing them with other persons 
and with his own imperfect being, he comes gradually to 
feel an unlimited reverence for his parents, which makes 
voluntary obedience toward them a duty, and causes their 
example to be regarded as a model. And soon other 
authority is associated with theirs ; namely, that of teachers, 



80 APPERCEPTION. 

near relatives, leaders among school companions, and masters 
with their servants. Especially in sacred history does God, 
the Perfect and Just One, appear as the highest authority, 
whose supreme will and control impress themselves indelibly 
upon the pupil's mind. These are the examples which especially 
determine his moral conceptions, and hence control his apper- 
ception on moral questions. They are vividly in mind when 
he acts ; they are his conscience. Not as though he were 
unable to distinguish for himself what is good or bad. He 
knows unworthy deeds or worthy motives in themselves 
very well, entirely apart from all thought of what his parents, 
or teacher, or God, would say on the matter. But such pure, 
independent moral feelings and judgments do not appear 
at this stage of development in the abstract, but rather in 
connection with certain model examples. Just as the 
thought of a child in all spheres of knowledge deals in part 
with very imperfect general pictures, not with general con- 
cepts, so in the field of ethics his morality does not show itself 
effective in the abstract form of the idea, — the principle, — 
but in the concrete form of the ideal. When one observes 
closely what guides the moral judgment in early youth, 
one finds that, in most cases, the example of some real 
person closely related to the child consciously or uncon- 
sciously exerts a deciding influence in the apperception, and 
thus largely determines the will. 

We come now to the third stage of development, which 
covers a riper age of boys and girls, the period from eleven 
to fourteen years of age. Here the processes in apperception 
are much the same as those we have already seen in the 
preceding stage. For instruction still continues to enlarge 
the child's experience by means of words, pictures and the 
presentation of new concrete objects. But the demands 
now made upon his ability are raised. The world of forms 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 81 

and symbols comes more to the front than heretofore, and 
these the pnpil is to fill with ideas and thoughts from his 
mental store. If he studies intelligently he must see the 
figures in Drawing and Geometry as real bodies, and learn 
to interpret mere outlines differently according to their 
shading and color. The familiar formula of Geometry, 
"Imagine a line drawn," etc., involves a somewhat difficult 
process of apperception. Geography imposes an equally 
difficult task upon the pupil when it requires him to translate 
the mute symbols of the map into fresh-colored images of 
mountain ranges and broad plains, of snow-capped mountain 
peaks and deep valleys, of rivers and lakes and the bound- 
less ocean, of villages and cities, fortifications and all the 
various objects of human interest. The thought-studies rely 
more than heretofore on mere words to produce new ideas 
and knowledge, and it is the pupil's duty to bring to bear 
the best he can from within himself ; i. e. , through his inner 
perceptions to put meaning into the words he hears, or, as 
has been well said, to follow the teacher's discourse by the 
help of the imagination. 

And likewise, when reading, the pupil must now learn to 
apperceive the thought at the same time with the printed 
symbols, to read while thinking and to understand while 
reading. He shows himself better and better prepared to 
meet such a great demand for apperceiving ability ; for the 
ideas which now stand at his disposal for the comprehension 
of the new matter are much more numerous and correct than 
in the former stages. Also many of his concrete notions have 
become condensed into clear concepts and united into groups 
and series. This more closely associated and richer store 
of knowledge is eager for employment, and shows itself 
effective with every new related perception. It not only 
sharpens the senses so that they observe what easily remains 



82 APPERCEPTION. 

hidden to the untrained eye, but it teaches also to compre- 
hend more correctly, reasonably and rapidly. By the help 
of the apperceiving concepts new facts find the right ex- 
planation with greater certainty, and secure their proper 
places in the thought- structure. Hence it happens that a 
pupil in an advanced class observes a plant, an animal, a 
natural phenomenon, with very different eyes from those of 
a child in a beginning class, — namely with eyes which are 
the result of scholastic knowledge. He is able to apperceive 
not only more forcibly and comprehensively, but also more 
correctly. Whereas he was subjective and fanciful in his 
interpretation, he has now become more objective and reason- 
able. This change betrays itself in all fields of knowledge 
by his critical attitude towards new impressions. "The 
naive manner in which, during the first half of his school 
life, he accepted old legends and mere outward appearances 
as true, gives place more and more to a different frame of 
mind and behavior. The riper scholar does not believe 
everything so unhesitatingly, but begins to ask for proofs ; 
and where freedom of speech is allowed, he does not grant 
immediately the reasons and proofs given, but, instead, 
weighs them in discussions that are often spirited." 1 

It is true that critical, thorough and objective knowledge 
is present in full measure only when one thinks in real 
concepts. Still the foundation for such thinking is being 
already laid at this age. In the previous periods of de- 
velopment the mind reveals its effort to establish unity and 
order among its products by forming its ideas into group 
series ; now, since the quantity of knowledge threatens to 
become unmanageable, it is active in uniting these groups 
into concepts and general rules, into laws and principles. 
The boy feels the need of giving greater clearness and unity 

1 Pfisterer, p. 241. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 83 

to what he knows, and of advancing from uncertain general 
pictures to clarified concepts. And so he exercises his 
thought in the criticism of those general pictures which 
his growing insight has shown to be inadequate. Such 
childish definitions as, " One who lies tells an untruth," or 
" An echo is that which returns again when it is thrown 
against the wall," no longer satisfy the youth. He strives 
now for a stronger grasp of ideas in order to meet the ob- 
jections of his school companions. Under the teacher's lead- 
ership he endeavors clearly to separate from one another, 
fields of thought that are related, and therefore such as 
could be easily confused ; also to become acquainted with 
and to comprehend all the ideas under one and the same con- 
cept, so that no essential characteristic of the latter may 
escape him. He compares and distinguishes the material 
collected, associates elements that have heretofore stood 
isolated in his mind, or breaks up groups of ideas that are 
incompatible with one another; he unites the similar and 
separates the dissimilar, and all the time travels about 
through various sets of notions with a speed and ease which 
find their only explanation in the activity of apperception. 
Similar or related members of reproduced series set in mo- 
tion the thought- groups to which they belong and help pre- 
serve their union, thus rendering a thoughtful, reflective 
study of the same an easy matter. The apperceiving atten- 
tion scarcely allows any notion that is within the horizon of 
consciousness or beyond it to escape, provided it falls under 
the general concept, or even appears to. It recognizes the 
essential in everything, and instinctively anticipates that 
which subsequent reflection establishes as correct. This 
latter has simply to choose out the important characteristics 
already partly known, separate them from the non-essentials 
and unite them into a pure concept, or definition. 



84 APPERCEPTION. 

Logical concepts in the strict sense of the word, i. e., such 
as contain no non-essential, accidental property whatever, 
are, to be sure, like the ideals that human effort never 
succeeds in fully realizing. Even adults can attain them 
only approximately in their thinking. 1 

Naturally enough then, children will seldom reach them. 
They think chiefly in psychological concepts. But these can 
receive such a clarification that they perform almost the 
same service for knowledge as the logical concepts. And 
it is just such clarified general ideas, sufficient for logical 
thinking, that the boy is acquiring and can acquire, through 
apperception, in all fields of knowledge. They, together 
with the rules and laws to which, at a maturer age, he 



1 This is in accordance with the nature of the concept. It is not, as 
has been stated in our former editions, a new and separate creation pro- 
duced by the soul, originating from the fusion of the common and essen- 
tial characteristics of similar notions. "We understand, on the contrary, 
under concept the entirety of the similar essential characteristics which 
thought, passing through the notions rapidly, chooses from among them 
and holds side by side in consciousness. It is not a new mental product 
existing apart from and outside of the concrete notions; but it is 
thought out each time, inasmuch as a person from among the numerous 
ideas of the same kind (or also from only one idea) lifts exclusively the 
essential characteristics into the centre of consciousness and endeavors to 
isolate them from the others, which recede or withdraw (an attempt that 
is always, of course, only partially successful). It is like a melody, which 
can be easily distinguished in a piece of music of several parts on account 
of special emphasis or peculiar registering, while, however, it never 
ceases to form a constituent part of the separate accords. It happens to 
us regularly, when we attempt really to think a concept and not simply 
repeat the words of the definition, that we involuntarily glide down 
among its individual notions, that we hasten through these quickly and 
emphasize what is common and essential, rejecting the non-essential. 
The general is not really separated from the particular, but only distin- 
guished from it ; for deep down in consciousness it is always united with 
what is concrete. And for just that reason, because the concept is not a 
finished product, but the result each time of a very energetic concentra- 
tion of consciousness, it is so difficult to think it strictly in the logical form. 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 85 

gladly rises out of the multiplicity of phenomena, constitute 
the apperceiving agents through which, in the future, he 
comprehends his new experiences more correctly and rapidly 
than heretofore. The most important effect of instruction 
is that it makes the pupil more and more capable of apper- 
ception, i. e., independent thinking, and therefore less subject 
to the control of outward impressions. With every new effec- 
tive act of apperception that instruction superintends, he 
becomes better able to protect himself from the forces of the 
mechanism of ideas, from the power of mere fancies, and to 
follow a definite purpose in collecting and Concentrating his 
ideas. Thus while the quantity of his thought has grown 
larger, the energy of his thinking has also increased ; he 
has acquired greater ability to hold many thoughts together 
at one time, to examine critically large groups of ideas, and 
has thus gained the most correct concept possible. 

In the sphere of moral thoughts and deeds ^the feelings of 
sense do not predominate to such an extent as in the earlier 
stages of development. They are counterbalanced by 
higher, spiritual interests that have awakened with the de- 
velopment of a valuable thought-content. 

As noticed above, successful apperception is the source 
of interest. In proportion as the field within which active 
apperception is employed is rich, interest will be many- 
sided and the will manifold and strong. The child's mind 
is now no longer entirely absorbed in bodily satisfactions, 
but it begins to concern itself with higher things. The enjoy- 
ment of well-mastered knowledge, of aesthetic forms and of 
independent thought, enlarges the child's idea of happiness. 
But however much these intellectual interests may pave the 
way for a moral disposition and lend it support, they are 
still not necessarily bound up with it. They may just as 
readily serve a naked egoism, which cultivates virtue 



86 APPERCEPTION. 

merely to gain advancement, asking first, what profit or 
hinderance will it be to me? Where this disposition dom- 
inates thought and effort, there can be no objective and 
purely ethical judgment of one's own or of others' purposes ; 
but in such cases apperception is mingled with selfish, pleas- 
ure-seeking prejudices. Who would deny that the boy is 
often inclined to such a view of life ? 

But a painstaking education tries to prevent such a 
tendency from becoming a habitual drift of one's nature. 
We have seen before how the living example of parents and 
teachers may become such a power over the child, under 
normal conditions, that he will find it difficult to resist its 
influence. Those ideal characters also, drawn from sacred 
and from profane history, with which instruction makes him 
acquainted, may now exercise upon him more and more of 
their formative power. And just this fancied intercourse 
with historical persons is able, in a high degree, to generate 
pure, moral thinking. So long as a child exercises his 
moral judgment upon himself and his surroundings, the de- 
cision is seldom free from selfish interest and is therefore 
seldom objective. How easily and even unconsciously he 
allows himself to be led by secret wishes or by a regard for 
other persons. Very different is it when, in fancied inter- 
course with ideal persons of antiquity, the child is impelled 
to ethical perception and judgment. Those historical 
characters are persons to whom he can do neither a favor 
nor an injury, and they in turn have no power either to 
benefit or harm him. Here the moral judgment can ripen in 
perfect freedom, uninfluenced by other interests or by 
reference to the child's own actions. Here the boy first 
shows his inclination and capacity to estimate moral disposi- 
tions objectively and trains himself to a pure ethical com- 
prehension. In the historical world that now finds entrance 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION". 87 

to his head and heart, he discovers a second power of 
soul that gives direction to his ethical perception. But the 
ethical types which real and fancied intercourse with ideal 
persons present to him, are the foundation upon which 
thought gradually builds up general requirements and com- 
mands, as they have found classical expression, for example, 
in the decalogue. With the aid of such general and uni- 
versal precepts, which the boy has acquired and stored 
away, he now apperceives his own action and that of others. 
They are the rules to which he subjects conduct. But those 
rules have not yet acquired for him the weight of principles. 
For, however completely they may have found acceptance 
with him, they yet remain to him, primarily, only the ex- 
pression of the divine will, — not self -given rules, but com- 
mands. Behind all the ethical rules that he has recognized 
as valid stands God as a power commanding reverence, who 
maintains his precepts intact and for whose sake the child 
incorporates them into his own will. " To have God before 
one's eyes" — with these words of the sacred text one might 
summarize and illustrate the character of ethical appercep- 
tion that is suited to a well-bred boy in our present stage of 
culture. 

At first the child's own body was the starting point and 
centre of all his feeling and desires, but the youth learns 
gradually to look upon his body as a part of the external 
world, and with every fresh inner experience his self-con- 
sciousness retreats more and more into the introspective life. 
In his previously acquired ideas and feelings he now also seeks 
his ego or self. This entire self-consciousness as the essential 
basis of his nature he sets over against external impressions 
and disturbances. 

This transformation of the notion of the ego is carried out 
most fully in the next period of development, young man- 



88 APPERCEPTION. 

hood, which we must briefly consider. It is the period of 
the domination of the sensibilities, in which mental states 
arising from the feelings chiefly guide the person. The in- 
tellectual feelings can develop in a much richer, purer form, 
becoming stronger, and more permanent, because the con- 
ditions in favor of them are present in a far different degree 
than in previous stages of growth. Consider, for example, 
the development of aesthetic feeling. The admiration of 
beautiful forms appears quite early. The child, we saw, is 
delighted with the harmony of rhyme and with the smooth 
movement of measures. He is able to appreciate the charm 
of symmetrical figures and objects, and to prefer a beautiful 
face to an ugly one. In addition to this come the well- 
devised plans of instruction for discovering and appre- 
ciating the beautiful in the simplest sensations of space 
and tone, in geometrical and plant ornamentation, not less 
than in poem and song. But they are only isolated element- 
ary aesthetic feelings that thus arise, not strong unified sum- 
totals that take root in important well-connected masses 
of thought, and become stimulated in a greater degree by the 
entire view of a work of art. That which gives interest and 
pleasure to the boy in viewing a painting or an architectural 
work is less the harmony of the constituent form-elements, 
less the thought realized, than single unessential or accidental 
parts which lie outside of the aesthetic judgment. The right 
understanding of a work of art, and the deep and pure feeling 
for its beauties, first disclose themselves to the youth or man. 
Where the variety of forms confuses the boy's mind, the 
trained eye is able to detect the law by which the whole is 
determined ; it reveals fundamental forms that reappear in 
the most varied setting, and shows harmonious construction 
of the whole. So the master-piece of art enters conscious- 
ness in the form of a clear and well- articulated total effect, 



THE THEOEY OF APPERCEPTION". 89 

which, by virtue of its form, awakens a strong and elevating 
feeling. But for this mental picture we are indebted only in 
a small degree to the ear and eye, which convey to us the 
sense-impression. Its existence is due rather to the power- 
ful influence of all the memory-pictures that we have before 
acquired from similar forms, and of the aesthetic judgments 
and feelings that sprang out of a close observation. The 
eye, which in observing a picture or a G-othic dome quickly 
rectifies itself and separates the important from the acci- 
dental, is guided by certain rules which it has previously 
appropriated and is supported by an acquired efficiency in 
supplementing certain serial forms from memory. Since we 
recognize familiar or similar things in a work of art, the eye 
need not lose itself in the parts, but may confine itself to the 
chief characteristics. We thus apperceive the beautiful by 
the aid of previously acquired aesthetic perceptions, and each 
person's aesthetic sensibility is dependent upon his memory 
content. 1 

This is true in a double sense of those works of art 
which please not only because of the pure form, but for the 
sake of what they signify or suggest. When we attribute 
a thought- content to a painting or statue, or when we find 
pleasure in the actions or sensibilities to which they give 
ideal expression, we comprehend them in accordance with 
our own store of ideas and feelings, and the aesthetic impulse 
is dependent upon the degree of thoroughness and ease 
with which the apperception of the beautiful is accomplished. 
But this kind of apperception presupposes such a wealth of 
knowledge and inner experience as one does not usually 
acquire before young manhood. We have in mind not 

The knowledge of this dependence of our sense of form upon revived 
memory pictures has led even to the formation of anew law controlling 
the whole aesthetics of form. 



90 APPERCEPTION. 

simply such master-pieces as Raphael's Disputation and the 
School of Athens, or Kaulbach's Destruction of Jerusalem, 
or the pediment group of the Parthenon, whose aesthetic 
appreciation is conditioned upon numerous religious, histori- 
cal and mythological facts, but chiefly upon all those works 
of art whose beauty can only be revealed to a soul which 
has known and experienced all those feelings, passions and 
conflicts which find representation in these works. 1 

Sympathetic feeling of joy or sorrow is, like aesthetic ap- 
preciation, dependent upon the content of our memory, upon 
what we have pondered and experienced in our own hearts. 

But we can share the feelings of another person. Since 
they cannot be directly perceived by us, they must manifest 
themselves by peculiar changes in the various physical 
organs, through the agency of words, manners, gestures and 
other external signs. The instant we perceive these, there 
arises above the threshold of thought, in accordance with the 
law of indirect reproduction, the notion of identical or similar 
expressions of feeling as we have observed them previously 
in ourselves ; and frequently they appear with a strength 
and life that cause us to imitate involuntarily the move- 
ments of another. According as this group of ideas acquires 
total or partial reproduction, it enters into a relation of 
interchange with the signs of feeling that we have observed 
in others, and as soon as the similar elements in the two 
groups predominate, they fuse together completely. Now 
for the first time the mind, by the aid of the old group, is able 

x The young man now interprets the voices of nature in a different 
strain from that of his childhood and gives a different meaning to the 
simple childhood's song of the swallow, and with poetic sympathy 
follows the poet when he sings : — 

'* When I said farewell, when I said farewell, 
The world was full and fair ; 
When I came again, when I came again, 
It had grown so poor and bare." 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 91 

to interpret the new perception. The old ideas supplement 
the latter, since by the analogy of experience we can con- 
jecture what is taking place in the mind of another, when the 
latter, for instance, blushing, drops the eyes or stammers 
confused words ; we can tell what thoughts are storming 
upon him in the moment when sighs are forced from him and 
tears stream from his eyes. Now we understand the words, 
manners, and gestures of another. There is but one step 
more to sympathy. 

The apperceiving group of ideas was previously the seat 
of a feeling by virtue of the constraining or stimulating 
conditions existing within it or in consequence of its value 
for the ego. While this group of ideas is being reproduced 
and strengthened by fusion with other new and similar 
perceptions, the aforesaid constraining and stimulating re- 
lations are produced anew, and the relations to the self are 
recognized again, so that a similar feeling arises above the 
threshold of consciousness. But it has a like significance 
with the feeling of another person, since they are the same, 
or at least similar notions out of which both spring. At 
the moment when we understand our neighbor, when an 
appreciation of his mental state is complete, we feel his joy 
or grief ; we have sympathy with him as if we were touched 
with the same cause of feeling. 

But the way to sympathy, as pointed out in the foregoing 
discussion, is through apperception. Without it there is no 
appreciation of others' states of feeling. Where this is lack- 
ing, the joy or sorrow of our neighbor knocks in vain at the 
door of our inner life ; there remains no sympathy with weal 
or woe. And now we understand why the child, which is 
usually so inclined to share the pain of another, limits its 
sympathy mostly to the narrow circle of its own nearest 
acquaintance ; also how the boy can pitilessly and thought- 



92 APPERCEPTION. 

lessly injure another's success, or coolly ignore his need. We 
find it explicable that even well-meaning children are often 
guilty of an apparent cruelty which is certainly foreign to 
their nature, that they can play thoughtlessly beside the coffin 
of a loved one without feeling the loss or understanding the 
tears and grief of their friends. It would be an error to 
infer a wicked and hardened disposition or a rude and 
depraved nature, where sympathy with others' weal or woe 
is lacking. In very many such cases there is only a lack of 
apperception. One cannot put himself in the place of his 
neighbor, since the latter moves in an entirely different 
circle of thought ; one cannot sympathize with him because 
one has not experienced what troubles or exalts him : his 
feelings awaken nothing kindred in the soul of the observer. 
But whenever the sight of a suffering or rejoicing neighbor 
transports one vividly into the time of his own success or 
misfortune, where one hopes or fears for himself what 
happens to another, there a strong and living sympathy will 
not easily fail ; there it constrains even hard hearts. In a 
beautiful and fitting manner the immortal Homer, in a 
scene of the Iliad, has vividly represented this psychical 
process. Hector, the splendid hero, has just fallen before 
the walls of Troy. No favor is shown him by his rival, the 
fearfully angered Achilles. " Be silent and conjure me not 
on bended knees, nor in behalf of thy parents, for no one 
shall drive the dogs from thy head." — Thus had he 
darkly answered the petitioner and, without regard for the 
distress of the despairing parents, he dragged the body 
through the dust, visiting upon his enemy a treatment un- 
worthy even of an iron heart. Daily he repeats the shame- 
less deed, pondering how he may most completely avenge his 
friend Patroklus. Then on the twelfth night there appears 
before him the gray-haired father of Hector. While pray- 



THE THEOEY OF APPERCEPTION. 93 

ing for the body of his slain son, he reminds Achilles of the 
aging father whom he has left behind in his distant home, 
how the latter is even now, perhaps, hard-pressed by sur- 
rounding peoples, and, deprived of help and protection, 
longing for the joy of his age, his only son, as he waits 
for his return. " Like grief has fallen upon me," continues 
Priam, "and worse. Not only have I lost a son, who 
protected the city and all of us, and the fifty sons who were 
born to me, but even now I press to my lips the hand that 
has slain my children." Silently Achilles receives the 
words of . the king. But as the latter speaks to him of the 
father at home, a thousand thoughts rush through his mind 
and awaken feelings of longing and sorrow. For he con- 
siders how, according to the decree of the gods, he shall 
never see his home, how he is early to descend to Hades, 
and will never provide for his aged father. And as grief 
now enters his own soul, suddenly his understanding opens 
to the grief of the suppliant old man. The same Achilles 
who rejoiced so jubilantly at the fall of his enemy, who 
heartlessly abused and dishonored the dead, knows now 
how deeply the unhappy father suffers, who lies before him 
in the dust. He feels in his own distress the grief of an- 
other. The ice which enveloped the cold and even cruel 
heart of the young man, is now melted away ; he weeps 
with the king, he springs down from the seat and, lifting the 
old man by the hand, speaks to him these words of sym- 
pathy : ' ' Unfortunate man, of a truth thou hast endured 
much grief of heart." 

Thus pain and grief make the heart receptive for all ten- 
der impulses and feelings. This is the blessing of sorrow — 
that the I which in success and pleasure is easily isolated 
and subject to egoism, is expanded to the unselfish and 
sympathetic we, that it deepens the heart and plants in it a 



94 APPERCEPTION. 

living sympathy. Perpetual sunshine and an unbroken suc- 
cession of fortunate days would little enrich our soul-life ; 
for as Riickers says : ' ' The stream flows turbid that has 
not passed through a lake ; the heart is still impure that has 
never known sorrow." 

The more a human being has tasted grief in the school of 
heart-trouble, and the more he has deeply experienced the 
changes of fortune, the more easily and fully can he under- 
stand another's state of feeling, the quicker can he rejoice 
with those who do rejoice and weep with those who mourn. 
For this reason the well trained young man will ever dis- 
tinguish himself above the boy by the strength and variety 
of his sympathetic feelings. 

But this enriching and deepening of soul experiences (sen- 
sibilities) is in the main identical with the promotion of moral 
disposition, of will action. For it is in the feelings that our 
interests, inclinations, desires and undertakings find root. 
The more our nobler intellectual feelings grow and prevail, 
the less can impure, low thoughts and inclinations manifest 
themselves ; the greater the strength with which moral feel- 
ing speaks to us, the oftener does the will follow it. Be- 
sides this, with feeling the inner perception grows in vivid- 
ness and power. The periods when those states of mind 
prevail which are dominated by feeling, are also the periods 
of quiet introspection and sober self -observation. Just as 
the young man in the field of scientific knowledge has 
learned to gather up and bind together his thoughts, so now 
he is better able to hold fast, to contemplate and to pass 
judgment upon the pictures presented by his own will and 
conduct. And now when he applies to these the standards 
which he has acquired in his intercourse with real and fan- 
cied persons, when he apperceives them by means of the 
ethical laws, as the purpose of his teachers and the will of 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 95 

God have represented them, a living moral sensibility is cer- 
tain to follow. Inner satisfaction will succeed when conduct 
corresponds to the type and awakens a desire always thus to 
act in similar cases. In the form of remorse, or a torturing 
feeling of pain, on the other hand, there will be the attend- 
ant conviction that his acts of will cannot stand in the 
presence of his moral patterns, and the urgent requirement 
springs up to be more careful in the future and to avoid the 
repetition of such humiliating moments. To be sure, ego- 
tistical ideas and motives, the consideration of one's own 
sensuous comfort, the lower feelings and inclinations will 
manifest themselves all too soon, in order to make excuse 
for the mutually criminating ideas, to apperceive the present 
case of conduct in accordance with selfish principles and in- 
terests, and thus to give it another and more favorable turn. 
" Necessity knows no law," "Each one is his own nearest 
neighbor," " One must howl with the wolves," " When one 
is in Rome one must do as the Romans do" — these are 
some of those maxims of worldly wisdom, which seek to gain 
acceptance and indeed in many cases determine the valua- 
tion of a moral object. 

And yet the more vividly and feelingly the pure model of 
his earthly and heavenly authorities stands before the soul, 
together with the remembrance of all those cases in which 
he has followed it with self-satisfaction, and the more his 
moral judgment and feeling have been developed in freedom, 
purity and strength in accordance with the ideal characters 
of history, so much more will such experience stand forth 
as psychical forces, as a power which works manfully against 
egotistic tendencies. They will not always preponderate in 
the moment of decision, but they will at least secure an au- 
dience afterwards as the voice of conscience. And thus out 
of such experiences, bound up with elevating or humiliating 



96 APPEKCEPTION. 

feelings ; out of right principles, which spring from remorse 
or from moral self-satisfaction, along the pathway of apper- 
ception, gradually a rule, or universal ethical judgment arises, 
which stretches over a whole multitude of the same or* sim- 
ilar exercises of will. But it will be set up with the firm 
determination that it shall prevail as a law for our conduct 
in all the future. A new temper of will begins therefore to 
spring up, whose object and content is that rule, or rather 
the corresponding command, which the young man once 
learned to know and estimate as God's or man's will. But 
now it presents itself to him, not as the expression of an- 
other's, but as the content of his own will; not as a com- 
mand, but as his own free determination ; not as a precept 
that one can 'approve and then fail to act in accordance 
with, but as a fundamental law that is obligatory for his 
own action. In this way the young man gradually trans- 
forms these external laws into his own maxims ; the knowl- 
edge of an authoritative will becomes his own moral insight. 
These maxims and principles, which we have seen spring- 
ing up when occasioned and aided by apperceiving activity, 
are in their turn the first among moral regulations adapted 
to apperceive vigorously and easily kindred dispositions and 
actions. For they acquire a high motive value from the 
feelings out of which they spring and from the will which 
supports them. They are the standards by which the adult 
measures his own and others' actions. Through them we 
acquire the faculty of quickly grasping new impressions in 
the moral world and of responding to them with suitable de- 
cisions of the will. With their help we observe and regu- 
late our impulses and desires, and those wishes and inclin- 
ations of will that spring from the psychical mechanism. 
If one of them does not harmonize with the general maxim 
and cannot attain to an equal motive power with it, it is 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 97 

rejected as unacceptable. And now one gives up a wish or 
an intention because he has reconsidered the matter; one 
denies himself an enjoyment so as to avoid unreasonable 
action, imposes upon himself an effort so as to escape an 
inner disapproval. If, on the contrary, the individual desire 
is in harmony with the principle in mind, it will be accept- 
ably apperceived with the aid of the latter ; it also attains a 
power and vigor it would not have secured alone, while on the 
other hand the practical principle is strengthened and estab- 
lished by the recently apperceived act of will. If the will has 
reached its object, the maxim is a second time brought for- 
ward with the question whether the actualized desire cor- 
responds to its content. The result of the accomplished 
apperception finds consciously a very strong expression in 
those agreeable or disagreeable feelings which we learned 
above to recognize as inner satisfaction or remorse. 

Apperception is accordingly the first condition for self- 
criticism and self-mastery. In that moral principles are 
employed in apperception, they become the defenders of the 
sensibilities of the soul, which endeavor to protect it against 
hostile assaults such as are not infrequently attempted by 
the passions and secret impulses, or by violent and sudden 
overthrows. If these maxims are gathered into a system 
that expands over the whole activity of the will, if again 
they are subordinated and held together by certain universal 
superior principles, as the single notion is held by the gen- 
eral concept, then the inner life of the person acquires that 
seal of unity which is denominated character. Then a 
circle of moral ideas acquires mastery in such a way as to 
make itself felt in apperception, not only now and then, as 
at church and on solemn occasions, but always and every- 
where, and as a secret power able to direct our action. 

This group of ideas, standing at all times close to con- 



98 APPERCEPTION. 

sciousness, attended by strong feelings and acts of will, 
takes still deeper root and works with still greater certainty 
the more it is supported and permeated by a religious 
temper. He who seeks the origin of moral ideas in that 
highest and most venerated Being who first willed them, 
will not hearken to them without looking up reverently to 
God, the only perfect ideal of a morally free person, from 
whom power and courage descend to him in the battle 
against evil. For him the ethical ideals found in G-od and 
in his Son, sent for our purification, acquire personal life, so 
that they determine his will-action more strongly and deeply 
with all the power of concrete reality. In him the enthu- 
siasm for moral ideas is changed into an inner love for the 
highest ideal, and obedience to self-chosen maxims is 
changed more and more into a free and willing obedience 
to the highest lawgiver. Of him who apperceives his will- 
actions and conduct in the spirit of such prevailing thought- 
centers and dispositions, the Scripture says : "He has God 
before his eyes and in his heart." He approximates moral 
freedom, that ideal which the youth seldom indeed, and the 
man only in a limited degree, can attain. 

Let us look back again at the results of our investigation. 
We observed first what essential services apperception per- 
forms for the human mind in the acquisition of new ideas, 
and for what an extraordinary easement and unburdening the 
acquiring soul is indebted to it. Should apperception once 
fail, or were it not implied in the very nature of our minds, 
we should in the reception of sense-impressions daily ex- 
pend as much power as the child in its earliest years, since 
the perpetually changing objects of the external world would 
nearly always appear strange and new. We should gain the 
mastery of external things more slowly and painfully, and 
arrive much later at a certain conclusion of our external ex- 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 99 

perieuee than we now do, and thereby remain perceptibly be- 
hind in our mental development. Like children with their A 
B C, we should be forced to take careful note of each word, 
and not as now allow ourselves actually to perceive only a few 
words in each sentence. In a word, without apperception, 
our minds, with strikingly greater and more exhaustive 
labor, would attain relatively smaller results. Indeed, we are 
seldom conscious of the extent to which our perception is 
supported by apperception ; of how it releases the senses from 
a large part of their labor, so that in reality we listen usually 
with half an ear or with a divided attention ; nor, on the other 
hand, do we ordinarily reflect that apperception lends the 
sense organs a still greater degree of energy, so that they 
perceive with greater sharpness and penetration than were 
otherwise possible. We do not consider that apperception 
spares us the trouble of examining ever anew and in small 
detail all the objects and phenomena that present themselves 
to us, so as to get their meaning, or that it thus prevents 
our mental power from scattering and from being worn out 
with wearisome, fruitless detail labors. The secret of its 
extraordinary success lies in the fact that it refers the new 
to the old, the strange to the familiar, the unknown to the 
known, that which is not comprehended to what as already 
understood constitutes a part of our mental furniture ; that 
it transforms the difficult and unaccustomed into the accus- 
tomed, and causes us to grasp everything new by means of 
old-time, well-known ideas. Since, then, it accomplishes 
great and unusual results by small means, in so far as it 
reserves for the soul the greatest amount of power for 
other purposes, it agrees with the general principle of the 
least expenditure of force, or with that of the best adapta- 
bility of means to ends. 

We have every reason, in this process, to recognize and 



100 APPERCEPTION. 

admire the wisdom of the divine Creator, who has estab- 
lished such suitable provisions for giving freedom and fur- 
therance to our mental life. 

As in the reception of new impressions, so also in working 
over and developing the previously acquired content of the 
mind, the helpful work of apperception shows itself. By 
connecting isolated things with mental groups already 
formed, and by assigning to the new its proper place among 
them, apperception not only increases the clearness and defi- 
niteness of ideas, but knits them more firmly to our con- 
sciousness. Apperceiving ideas are the best aids to mem- 
ory. Again, so often as it subordinates new impressions to 
older ones, it labors at the association and articulation of the 
manifold materials of perception and thought. By condens- 
ing the content of observation and thinking into concepts 
and rules, or general experiences and principles, or ideals 
and general notions, apperception produces connection 
and order in our knowledge and volition. With its assist- 
ance there spring up those universal thought-complexes 
which, distributed to the various fields to which they belong, 
appear as logical, linguistic, aesthetic, moral and religious 
norms, or principles. If these acquire a high degree of 
value for our feelings ; if we find ourselves heartily attached 
to them, so that we prefer them to all those things which 
are contradictory ; if we bind them to our own self, they 
will thus become powerful mental groups, which spring up 
independent of the psychical mechanism as often as kindred 
ideas appear in the mind. In the presence of these they 
now make manifest their apperceiving power. We measure 
and estimate them now according to universal laws. They 
are, so to speak, the eyes and hand of the will, with which, 
regulating and supplementing, rejecting and correcting, it 
lays a grasp upon the content as well as upon the succession 



THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION. 101 

of ideas. They hinder the purely mechanical flow of thought 
and desire, and our involuntary absorption in external im- 
pressions and in the varied play of fancy. We learn how 
to control religious impulses by laws, to rule thoughts by 
thoughts. In the place of the mechanical, appears the reg- 
ulated course of thinking ; in the place of the psychical rule 
of caprice, the monarchical control of higher laws and prin- 
ciples, and the spontaneity of the ego as the kernel of the per- 
sonality. By the aid of apperception, therefore, we are lifted 
gradually from psychical bondage to mental and moral free- 
dom. And now when ideal norms are apperceivingly active 
in the field of knowledge and thought, of feeling and will, 
when they give laws to the psychical mechanism, true cul- 
ture is attained. 1 



1 " Only the skill to rise quickly in every emergency to universal 
truths, makes the great mind, the true hero in virtue, the discoverer in 
science and art." — Lessing, Brief e. 

We must regretfully deny ourselves in this place the discussion of 
the important role that apperception has played in the development of 
whole peoples. 



PART II. 
THE THEORY OF APPERCEPTION 

IN ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 



As a member of a nation, the pupil finds himself from the 
beginning bound to a certain stage of civilization, which his 
ancestors have transmitted as the result of thousands of 
years of growth, which they have made through hard and 
painful labor. To get possession of this inheritance must 
be his first and foremost duty. For only thus can he him- 
self exercise his own powers in the midst of a great society, 
according to moral principles ; only thus can he contribute 
his share to preserve, increase, and transmit the inheritance 
of the fathers to the coming generations for still greater 
perfection. To this end education first of all should aid 
him. It must assume the responsibility of leading the child 
to appropriate the most important mental treasures which 
have been brought to light by the work of culture, so that, 
starting from this basis, he may advance still further. It 
should awaken in him a right estimation of these results of 
civilization acquired by hard conflicts, and a right appreci- 
ation for the duties of his time, that he may share in the 
life and struggle thereof with true insight, warmth, and 
power. In a relatively short time it must lift the youth as 
far as possible to the height of intellectual and moral and 
religious culture to which mankind, and especially his own 

103 



104 APPERCEPTION. 

people, have attained. How shall education accomplish this 
high purpose ? 

Judging by the popular view, we might think that the 
way to this result was clearly and simply pointed out : — 
let the pupil be taught the results of the intellectual labor 
of mankind, and he will quickly surmount the heights of 
culture. In the opinion of many people, language has 
"the power of transmitting to the hearer, with the full 
force of sense-impressions, the notions of the speaker and 
of calling forth in the hearer the feelings of the speaker 
with undiminished strength." It is all too easy for the in- 
cipient educator to draw the consequences from this doubt- 
ful theory, and to have faith in the magical power of his 
own words to generate and to call forth in the mind of the 
child the very same ideas and impressions that he himself 
connects with them. If the facts were really so ; if, without 
further care or effort, at the sound of a word the child 
invariably received the corresponding idea of a thing, then 
nothing would be easier than to teach and train. It would 
be sufficient for a teacher merely to ponder a subject of in- 
struction thoroughly and to give expression to his thoughts 
in a clear presentation, so as to help the pupil at once and 
without effort to a knowledge both clear and deep. Then 
forsooth the results of science, the materials of culture, 
might be simply transmitted, as a jug is filled. Then one 
might speak, not only of a certain class of recitations (as 
has really happened) in which the pupil ' ' has nothing to 
do," but the same thing must be said of all of them. In 
this case nothing would depend upon the understanding or 
study of the pupil, but everything upon that of the teacher. 
But happily this is not so. We saw before how the child 
constructs no idea, whether it be given him through objects, 
pictures, words, or letters, without bringing into exercise 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 105 

the previously acquired contents of his mind. We dis- 
covered that the little ones, in all that they acquired through 
instruction, were thinking and feeling something peculiar to 
themselves, that their original thoughts and feelings were 
secretly running side by side with the words of the teacher. 
The tension and the involuntary absorption, with which they 
follow good instruction, testify to this secret activity; so 
also do the bright glowing eye, and the lively sunshine which 
gleams from their faces whenever the word of the teacher has 
struck the right tone or has touched the deepest chords of 
their feeling. It is further proved by the lively questions of 
the pupils, by their joyful assent, which perhaps breaks forth 
in a hearty : "Yes, that's so ! " Whoever has observed in 
such moments a joyfully active group of children, knows how 
far removed their energetic learning is from a simple, pas- 
sive reception, and that not the teacher, but they themselves 
have the most to perform. He is convinced that knowledge 
cannot be transmitted, that the pupil must work it out inde- 
pendently for himself. That is what the poet means when 
he says : " What you have inherited from your fathers, you 
must earn again in order to possess it." 

As has been already established, all mental treasures that 
education and instruction should transmit to the pupil, can 
be appropriated only with the help of a previous group of 
ideas, and then only to the extent that the greatest possible 
number of kindred ideas is brought to bear upon new facts 
to set them in their proper light, and to bring them into the 
best possible adjustment. " No one hears anything except 
what he knows, no one perceives anything except what he 
has experienced." This saying is true here also. What is 
entirely new and can find no point of connection is either 
not understood or only superficially apprehended. On the 
other hand the best instruction is given when the words of 



106 APPERCEPTION. 

the teacher stir the inmost thoughts of the child, so that he 
is not passive, but wholly active. And so it remains true, 
as we have already seen, that the most eminent characteristic 
of learning is not to be denominated passivity, but activity, 
that all learning is apperceiving. 

Accordingly, it cannot be the duty of the teacher simply 
to transmit to the pupil the material of knowledge, or to 
communicate to him ideas, feelings and sentiments, but to 
awaken, stimulate and give life to mental activities. He has 
to reach down with regulative hand into those quiet, private 
thoughts and feelings of the child in which lie his ego and 
his whole future, that they may rise above the threshold of 
consciousness and communicate understanding, clearness, 
warmth, and life to instruction. In a word he has to make 
provision that in every case the process of apperception is 
accomplished with as much thoroughness as certainty and 
judgment. Then not only will the matter taught be me- 
chanically acquired, but it will be transformed at once into 
mental power; it will contribute steadily, by awakening 
thought and interest, to lift and ennoble the mental life. 

The higher we set our requirements for the teacher, the 
nearer lies the objection that we require what is unnecessary 
and impossible, and that the process of assimilation can be 
worked out in the child independently, without interference 
by the teacher. We can grant this objection for those 
cases in which the pupil in an exceptional manner ap- 
proaches instruction in a favorable mental temper. We 
admit also that very strong natures, which are distinguished 
by unusual inner activity, are accustomed to supply without 
the aid of others those apperceiving ideas which make pos- 
sible the comprehension of a new object of study, since it is 
a fact that a genius even with bad instruction, by his own 
power, finds the right road to development. But no one for 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 107 

this reason would make the exception the rule ; no one would 
attribute to all children without exception what is the priv- 
ilege of only a few gifted minds. 

If such an over-trustful teacher, who believes that apper- 
ception, as the rule, will take care of itself, could look into 
the minds of his pupils while he is speaking to them, he 
would be astonished often at what he would find there : 
either no thoughts at all or entirely foreign ones, that go 
promenading during instruction, and wander about in for- 
bidden ways; while in favorable cases, when the boy is 
taken up with the matter, the teacher would often find 
a grasp of the subject that differs as widely as the poles 
from his own. This is a state of mind in which apper- 
ception takes place superficially, or falsely, or not at all, 
for the pupil hears only words, nothing but words, and 
learns not from within outward, but is taught something 
superficially. No wonder if the boy is dull or uninterested 
in the* school room, 1 when, as Pestalozzi says, "he plays 
with words from his pocket," and when that which he has 
learned mechanically is soon forgotten or when the hollow, 
unsubstantial mental structure collapses after the school 
life is over. 2 

This result must follow when we do not open up the inner- 
most springs of a child's feeling, or when we neglect to 

x The usual instruction, so little regardful of ideas already in the 
pupil's mind, since it keeps in mind only what is to be learned, begins to 
bestir itself about the necessary attention, when it is already lost, and 
progress has been thereby hindered. 

2 Herbart refers to the peculiar fact that many pupils show much power 
of memory, fancy, and understanding in their own sphere while little of 
these is attributed to them by their teachers. They even dominate as 
the intelligent ones in their own circle ; they possess at least the respect of 
their playmates, whereas in the hours of study they are incapable. Such 
experiences betray the difficulty of making instruction take hold effect- 
ually of individual development. 



108 APPERCEPTION. 

awaken the apperceiving ideas for the new. Only consider 
what is demanded of a boy when he is held hour after hour 
to his task. He must forget a large part of the thoughts and 
feelings which he brought into the school with him from with- 
out, he must suppress the most choice and agreeable, the 
strongest and liveliest ideas and impulses, so as to follow the 
wholly new and strange notions of the teacher, or such as 
are little familiar to him. Even when he is interested 
in it, he dare not travel his own chosen road, following 
up the ideas called forth by instruction; but he is bound 
within his class limit to a definite fixed progress of thought, 
a certain average time of thought- movement, requiring an 
attention, labor, and effort of mind often felt as a burden, 
even by an adult. And now let one put himself in the state 
of mind of a six-year old little one, whose world, up to the 
present, has been the play-room, the street, the lawn, the 
garden, the field, who has tumbled about in the fresh fields 
of nature without care or aim ; how must he feel when he 
suddenly finds himself placed between the four walls of a 
school-room? Behind him are all the joys of the play- 
ground, the golden sunshine of nature; before him, the 
earnest man with the serious countenance. And now he is 
to learn tiresome letters and write figures that have no inter- 
est for him — no wonder if, in grief, he breaks out into tears, 
the school-room seeming a prison to him. If the teacher does 
not lay hold of the inner thought- treasures of the child, lead- 
ing him back in thought to the paradise of his youth, to the 
field of his inner and outer experience; if the teacher is 
indifferent whether the child gets anything out of his words 
or not, then he plays on an instrument without strings. 
The apperception of the child must not and cannot be left 
to blind, uncertain chance, and it must be regarded as the 
highest art of the teacher and educator, rightly to induce 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 109 

the process of mental assimilation in the pupil, and to con- 
duct it to a sure conclusion. 

From what has been said above concerning the conditions 
under which mental appropriation takes place, it follows that 
herein the instructor must direct his attention both to the 
subject and to the object of apperception, both to the apper- 
ceiving ideas and to those to be assimilated. 

1. Pedagogical Requirements in respect to the Ob- 
jects of Apperception. 

{Choice and arrangement of the material of instruction.) 
The object of apperception consists usually of those new 
and unfamiliar thoughts which the pupil has to master, the 
subject-matter of instruction which he has to apperceive. 
Of course this must answer certain conditions, if a thorough 
assimilation is to follow. It is manifestly insufficient that a 
subject-matter be selected in conformity with special scientific 
or ethical standpoints, and then left to the skill of the 
teacher as to how it is to be mastered. Anything, to be 
sure, can be assimilated by the hungry mind of the child, 
and, in the end, he would learn even Chinese if he had to. 
It is not only a matter of concern that something be apper- 
ceived, but that it shall take place with the greatest possi- 
ble mental culture, with certainty, and without unnecessary 
expenditure of power. It should be so learned that the 
culture-content of the matter may bring about the best pos- 
sible effect. To this, a well determined selection and arrange- 
ment of the subject-matter can essentially contribute, so far 
as regard is had for the constant, and in the course of de- 
velopment, also for the changing, peculiarities of child-nature, 
for the phases of thought and effort which dominate at dif- 
ferent times in the pupil. The teacher therefore has to 
see to it that he does not treat of things for which there are 



110 APPERCEPTION. 

not at hand sufficient points of contact in the youthful soul, 
for otherwise there would arise the greatest difficulties for 
instruction. Out of the whole field of learning, so far as 
it is admissible in accordance with the moral-religious aim 
of education, only those materials of culture and knowledge 
are to be selected which are adapted to the child's temporary 
stage of apperception. 1 

The question, what these materials are, Ziller has attempt- 
ed to answer by a precept as brief as it is comprehensive, 
drawn from psychology and history : ' ' The mental develop- 
ment of the child corresponds in general to the chief phases 
in the development of his people or of mankind. The mind- 
development of the child therefore cannot be better furthered 
than when he receives his mental nourishment from the 

1 Instruction therefore follows a line of the divine pedagogy. For even 
the exalted Educator of the whole human family is wont to reveal his 
heavenly truths to men only so far as they possess sufficient apperceiving 
ideas for them. When the time was ripe, when both Jews and Pagans 
had prepared the way for an understanding of the new evangel, when 
the longing for the Savior had been powerfully wakened, then God sent 
his Son. Then only could his life and teaching unfold a deeply pene- 
trating and world-historical influence. And does not the same divine 
wisdom appear in the words of the Lord, directed to his disciples, 
" I have still many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. 
When, however, the spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all 
truth." So long as his disciples were still entangled in the views of the 
people concerning the promised national Messiah, the King of the Jews, 
the divine Master could not entrust to them the whole secret of his 
sending. Only when they had experienced so many things in the days of 
Easter, which they had neither hoped nor feared, after they had seen the 
Lord suffer, die, rise again and ascend to heaven, did they fully under- 
stand his person, his mission, his destiny. Now they saw him in the light 
of the Old Testament prophecies, apperceived fully what was at first dark, 
as is so beautifully expressed in the speech of Peter on the day of Pente- 
cost. 

Compare also Goethe's words: "Man understands nothing but what is 
appropriate to him. Hence the duty of saying to others only the things 
that they can receive." — Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Chapter III. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. Ill 

general development of culture as it is laid down in literature 
and history. Every pupil should accordingly pass succes- 
sively through each of the chief epochs of the general mental 
development of mankind suitable to his stage of advance- 
ment." The material of instruction, therefore, " should be 
drawn from the thought-material of that stage of historical 
development in culture which runs parallel with the present 
mental state of the pupil." Now, of these chief stages or 
epochs of general culture, classical presentations give us 
sufficient and reliable knowledge. While we permit the child 
to live through in succession these narratives, belonging to 
sacred and secular history, we shall supply him in each period 
of education with that material which is best suited to him ; 
that is, for which there lie ready the greatest number of ap- 
perceiving aids. In pursuance of this plan, Ziller has pro- 
posed a mass of sacred and secular historical material of 
ethical value which follows general as well as national growth 
in culture. He claims that this material best corresponds to 
the stages of apperception, and to the individual develop- 
ment of the child, and that it essentially furthers and hastens 
both. 

A more pedagogically correct selection of the subject- 
matter than this seems in fact impossible, so far as the 
hypothesis from which Ziller proceeds is shown to be an 
incontrovertible fact. Can we assert this concerning it? 
Does there really exist such a far-reaching similarity be- 
tween the development of mankind or of the people and 
the individual development of the pupil, that upon it the 
theory of the choice of pedagogical material can be based ? * 

! To Richard Staude is due the honor of having first subjected this 
question to thorough critical consideration. See Rein's Pad Studien, 1880, 
No. 2; 1881, No. 2; 1888, No. 3. See also Sallwiirk's treatise: Gesin- 
nungsunterricht und Kulturgeschichte, 1887. 



112 APPEECEPTION. 

That the individual in his intellectual development repeats 
the evolution of all mankind has been from earliest times a 
favorite thought of minds prone to philosophy. When 
Vaihinger, in his treatise "Naturforschung und die Schule" 
(Scientific Investigation and the School, 1889), brings for- 
ward as proof of this a crowd of witnesses, one receives the 
impression that a certain principle, recognized by all, must 
indeed underlie such a number of harmonizing testimonies 
from our most prominent poets and thinkers. It is an ad- 
ditional proof that in the realm of science, the law of the 
congruence of intogenetic and phylogenetic series, according 
to which every more highly organized being has to pass 
through the stages of development of its species, has long 
since enjoyed universal recognition. Does it not lie close at 
hand to presume the activity of a similar law in the intel- 
lectual realm also? To be sure the attempt to transfer the 
biogenetic law without modification to the realm of intel- 
lectual life " because there exists no difference in principle 
between somatic and psychical development " 1 must be re- 
jected for evident reasons. But when it is shown by close 
psychological investigation that the development of the in- 
dividual is bound, not only to the same culture-content which 
mankind has produced, but also that the individual, like the 
latter, raises himself 2 to ever higher culture-epochs (or stages) 
only by means of the apperception of that culture-matter, is 
not a formal as well as material analogy between race and 
individual development sufficiently proven? — -An analogy, 
a similarity there surely is ; is there not possibly also a 
parallelism between the two reaching still farther? That, 
however, may be a matter of some doubt. For even if 
the individual apperceives and appropriates the knowledge 

1 Vaihinger, pp. 14-15. 

s See Capesius in Jahrb. d. Vereins.f. wissenchaft. Padag.X.YI., 149. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 113 

and experience given in the progress of human development 
just as the race itself did, it by no means follows from that, 
that this must happen in exactly the progression in which the 
culture-matter was gradually evolved. The case is rather 
conceivable that the individual mind, avoiding the circuitous 
and misleading paths of race development, apperceives the 
experience of the race according to other, and to him better 
suited, points of view. 1 

There is the possibility that for him another equally valid, 
and yet far simpler and shorter path of development to 
the desired goal may be found, and that race development 
and individual development differ from one another because 
of various conditions. Certain facts in experience make 
this indeed very probable. The bearers of human develop- 
ment are always adults, who unite, in their consciousness, 
the culture- content of their age ; the bearer of individual 
development is, in the first epochs, a child. Even though the 
latter may have many incomplete moral and religious intu- 
itions, many feelings and thoughts in common with the 
people of an earlier epoch — he is, after all, always a child, 
whose thoughts, feelings and aspirations are surely separated 
by a deep chasm from the prevailing habits of thought of an 
adult. It follows from the corporeal organism of the latter 
that always and everywhere he will have other needs, other 

1 Thus there was, long ago in history, a perfected science of logic before 
the simplest events in nature could be successfully explained. But in our 
schools the discoveries of Galileo will be taught before the creations of 
Aristotle. "The study of electricity is almost entirely a creation of 
more modern times ; the identity of lightning and the electric spark was 
first known -in the middle of the last century. The first electro-mag- 
netic phenomena were discovered in the twenties of this century, and yet 
we will teach our scholars both the identity of lightning and the electric 
spark, and the universal phenomena of electro-magnetism, earlier than 
the laws of centrifugal motion, for instance, which Huygens had estab- 
lished even in 1663. "— Capesius, P. 162-163; of. 168-169. 



114 APPERCEPTION. 

inclinations and habits, than the undeveloped child. But, 
on the other, hand, the child of our day brings with it 
into the world inherited tendencies, as a result of which, cer- 
tain intellectual activities become earlier apparent in it than 
is the case with adults of the first culture epochs, and give to 
its intellectual life special distinguishing features. In short, 
it might be a very difficult matter to find an exact corres- 
pondence between the epochs of universal human development 
and those of the child. One will always find that the child 
in some directions, — for example, as regards certain thought 
operations — is far beyond the corresponding culture epoch 
of the people, but in another direction, is far behind 
(consider the practical experience proceeding from occupa- 
tion), so that a uniform, corresponding progress in the 
individual and the whole race does not take place. 1 

In general, a far-reaching correspondence between the 
race and individual development is, after all, only conceivable 
by presupposing that the single mind, in regard to the chief 
points, and under the same outward and inner conditions, is 
gradually unfolded, just as mankind was, in its separate 
epochs of culture. The boy who, for example, has entered 
his patriarchal or nomadic period under the same influences 
of society and nature, would have to grow up in the same 
moral and religious habits of thought, and devote himself to 
the same pursuits as, perchance, the members of patriarchal 
families, if he were to live entirely and completely through 
the corresponding culture epoch. And thus in each follow- 
ing epoch, other conditions of life and development would 
have to be offered to the child, if it were really compelled to 
pass through in detail, and to experience in its own life, the 
progressive culture of the whole race. That is impossible. 
The child of our day is, once for all, bound to a definite 

1 Ci. Striimpell, Psycholog. Padagogik, p. 189. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 115 

sphere of life, from which it cannot be separated. It grows 
up in the midst of abundant culture, which very nearly repre- 
sents the gain in culture of all previous centuries. It is sur- 
rounded by far more complicated conditions of life than were 
presented by the primeval age, by men who, as regards their 
degrees of culture, exhibit the greatest differences in such a 
way that almost every epoch in civilization is represented by 
them in certain respects. The extraordinarily manifold and 
quickly changing influences to which the child is in this way 
exposed, by no means exert their force in a regular manner, 
as, for instance, according to the historical point of view. 
They are more likely to confront the child in motley order 
according to the needs of daily life. His mind lays hold 
now of this, now of that, and now again of very different 
parts simultaneously, and, at least in the realm of outer 
experience, does not advance in the logical order of a sys- 
tem of study, or according to regular epochs. 1 In the city, 
for instance, he usually learns our modern methods of 
business intercourse, or our highly developed industry, earlier 
than the simpler forms of human labor. He becomes ac- 
quainted with the Christian belief and Christian manner of 
thought even before the typical forms of previous religious 
epochs of development can be presented to him. 2 But if, 
according to that, the intellectual and bodily life of the in- 
dividual is unfolded under numerous other conditions than 
those of earlier human races, there must also exist a de- 
cided difference between race and individual development. 3 

1 Striimpell, p. 161. 

2 Here we do not think merely of " tales from the life of Christ, brought 
from the home to the school," as Thrandorf, nor of "externals of Chris- 
tianity," as Vaihinger gracefully puts it. But we mean that the whole 
serious manner of life in a Christian family imparts to the child strong, 
warm and pare moral-religious ideas which exclude experience of certain- 
sense perceptions, standing lower down in the scale. 

3 The attempt to withdraw the child artificially from given culture 



116 APPERCEPTION. 

The psycho-genetic law of parallelism between the develop- 
ment of the individual and the species, suffers accordingly a 
similar limitation to that of the biogenetic law in the 
scientific world. It is well-known that the latter holds good 
only for the embryo iu its prenatal state. 

Free embryos or larvae, on the contrary, must adapt 
themselves independently to the conditions of exterior life, 
and can therefore not repeat faithfully the historic develop- 
ment of their species. The individual mind of our day is 
similarly conditioned. It is not an embryo, protected from 
exterior influences, which repeat without disturbance the 
race development, but from the beginning it is exposed to 
the effects of an essentially different environment, in accord- 
ance with which it has to conform itself. Consequently, 
with the child, it cannot be merely a question of a develop- 
ment in harmony with the progress of historical culture, but 
it is also with equal right, a question of adaptibility to 
changed circumstances, and no educational art will bring the 
child to the point where its culture will run fully parallel to 
the race development. In general, we indeed recognize a cer- 
tain similarity between single and collective development; 
but as soon as we enter into details, our analogy is, in many 
cases, no longer tenable. 1 If that is the case, then, peda- 
gogical proofs can be drawn from that analogy only in litn- 

influences in order to keep it in a certain definite culture-epoch is, of it- 
self, prohibited as a vain endeavor. Neither Rousseau's flight from 
the world nor Jean Paul's " subterranean education" can pass for accept- 
able attempts at settling pedagogical questions. 

1 Capesius, p. 182. 

" The path in which we lead youth is not so firmly established in the 
highways along which the human race has passed, that we, the educators, 
may not have essentially aided in determining it by our aims and judg- 
ments ; education may be a compendious repetition of tbe world's history ; 
but we make the compendium in the spirit of definite ideals, which fill 
us." — Willmann, Didactik L, 74. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 117 

ited measure. It will give us many an excellent hint for me- 
thodical work in more than one province of knowledge. But 
it is not such a far-reaching or deeply-rooted principle, that 
the study of the choice and arrangement of culture-matter 
could be based upon it without further thought. 

Herein we may perhaps have found an answer to the ques- 
tion from which our investigation started, and a negative 
one at that. But Ziller asserts, not merely an agreement of 
race and individual development in general, but he insists 
that the child shall pass through the various stages of each 
epoch of culture development. Now, in opposition to this, 
it might undoubtedly be asserted that what was firmly es- 
tablished in respect to the development of the individual 
taken as a whole, might also be applicable to a part of this 
development — to that of the child. Nevertheless there 
might still exist even here especial circumstances which would 
admit of another interpretation. Let us, accordingly, see 
what facts Ziller brings into the field to support his assump- 
tion. He asserts that the pupil, as regards his connection 
with a greater community, passes through the following 
epochs of moral development by the aid of instruction, and 
must necessarily pass through them in conformity with his 
nature : — 

1. He subjects himself, first of all, to authority in pure 
childish confidence - 

2. His own thoughts must then move freely in that sphere 
which is ruled over by this authority. 

3. He must subordinate himself to this authority volun- 
tarily. 

4. He must recognise and love the highest authority. 

5. He must learn to work in its service toward the goal 
of a moral and religious culture of his own inner being, as 
well as, 

6 . For that of the larger community to which he will be- 
long. 



118 APPERCEPTION. 

Certain culture epochs of the general social development 
seem to correspond to this development of the individual in 
his relation to a larger race life, as is shown with especial 
distiDCtness in the epochs of sacred history. 1 

It is, first of all, noticeable in the preceding statement, 
that there is an effort to set forth a correspondence between 
general and individual development, in the province of social 
ethics alone. For the remaining province of intellectual 
life a similar proof has not been offered (expect a few weak 
attempts). And yet, without such a one, the whole culture- 
epoch theory hovers in mid- air, for the idea of culture 
embraces more than the moral relation of the individual to 
society. 

And then it is subject to a very considerable doubt as to 
whether it may be possible to establish firmly, within the 
moral and religious development of the child, a large num- 
ber of epochs, sharply distinguished from one another. A 
careful, unbiased observation shows us, rather, how unsteady 
and indefinite the youthful mind-life is exactly in this re- 
spect, how it lacks evenness of character, and a steadfast will- 
power. The beginnings of all possible ethical lines of con- 
duct are present even early in life, and those things that Ziller 
passes in review, one after the other, are generally limited 
to no definite epoch at all, but are developed simultaneously. 
Thus, the child that subjects itself, without reflection, to 
human authorities, will surely, very soon, receive a presenti- 
ment of the fact that its will is bound to the highest author- 
ity, and if it obeys — whether voluntarily or involuntarily — 
is it not already working here on the moral formation of its 
inner life in the service of this authority? Furthermore, who 

1 See the further exposition in Jahrb. d. V.f. w., P. XIII. (1881), p. 118. 
It is expressly stated here that the culture epochs appear to correspond to 
the normal development of the child's mind. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 119 

could define, even approximately, the moment when the 
pupil passes from the first to the second epoch of develop- 
ment, since thus his own thoughts move voluntarily in the 
sphere of that which is governed by this authority ? Who 
would be able to assert at what moment he subordinated 
himself to the highest authority by his voluntary act? Do 
not the most varied ethical lines of conduct often alternate 
in him, just according to his momentary condition of mind, 
according to the exterior circumstances, which render the 
moral action easier or harder for him? Do not, even with 
the well-instructed and well-bred child, eudsemonistic and 
strictly ethical sentiments dwell for a long time peaceably 
by one another? This inability of the childish will, this 
lack of uniform endeavor, does not permit us to recognize a 
whole line of milestones and turning-points in the path of 
the pupil's ethical development, from his sixth to his four- 
teenth year. We shall indeed be able to define, in general, 
the direction of the ethical progress, and perhaps in this re- 
spect (as in the sketch given on pages 66 and following) prove 
an essential difference between the early and the late boyish 
period. But the effort to fix upon six, or indeed eight ethi- 
cal epochs of development for the eight school years of the 
public school pupil appears to us to be a fruitless en- 
deavor. 1 

1 In an article in the Sachs. Schulzeitung, well worth reading ( 1887, 
p. 128, etc.), Hartmann has attempted to prove at least four epochs of de- 
velopment in the pupil, for the period from the sixth to the fourteenth 
year. But, however valuable his exposition may be in detail, it still ap- 
pears to stand too much in the jurisdiction of Ziller's congruence hypothe- 
sis, for it to be. everywhere true to the facts. We are, at least, not able 
to admit that precisely the ninth and tenth years of life is the epoch of 
the subordination of the individual will to an authorized general will, and 
that the pupil, in the thirteenth or fourteenth year, already allows him- 
self to be directed in his action by fundamental moral ideas. Vogt distin- 
guishes only three ethical epochs of development in the individual,, 



120 APPERCEPTION. 

But even if it be granted that, in the future, penetrating psy- 
chological research ma^ succeed in accomplishing the improb- 
able, it is still a very great question whether it would define 
those epochs exactly as Ziller does. For it is, indeed, a matter 
of no doubt at all, that his social and ethical culture-epochs 
reach, in part, far beyond the age of childhood, beyond the 
school period of the public school pupil. How many men 
there are who do not learn, in all their lives, to submit 
themselves voluntarily to authority ! And does not daily 
experience prove that love for the highest authority is, 
as a rule, not the prevailing sentiment of boyhood ; that 
the instructor gladly contents himself, for the present, 
with a less voluntary obedience on the part of the pupil who 
leaves the public school, if only the idea of God has become 
a power in his mind ? That moral freedom, then, in conse- 
quence of which man consciously and S} T stematically works 
for the completion of his own ethical culture, as well as for 
the realization of an ideal human society, we shall never 
hope to find in the boy, but, on the contrary, at best only in 
the maturing youth and in the man. 

Let us not be checked by the fact that the pupil can and 
must grow into higher epochs of moral development, by the 
aid of ideals. Certainly he can and should. But by that 
we still do not say that the thoughts and sentiments with 
which he thus becomes acquainted immediately predominate 
in him, and must do so as a result of instruction ; that now 
the pupil must have necessarily attained to the same ethical 

which he characterizes thus : subjection to a foreign authority, voluntary 
action under the authority of the law, and the independent authority or 
government of ideas (Explanations to Jahrbuch d. V.f. w., P. XVI., p. 40). 
His assertion that the third epoch "comes to view" already in the four- 
teenth year becomes comprehensible only if we, with him, give to the 
concept, epoch of development, a meaning totally different from the or- 
dinary use of the word. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 121 

epoch of development by passing, in fancy, through the high- 
est epoch of human culture. The degree of ethical reality in 
the subject-matter for instruction is dependent on certain psy- 
chical conditions which no education and no instruction can 
permanently create. If, for example, the conditions for the 
sovereignty of ethical ideas, or for the moral freedom, accord- 
ing to our exposition given on page 76, etc., are first dis- 
covered in the period of youth or manhood, then the most valu- 
able subject-matter before this time produces only germs and 
tendencies towards that moral constitution of will, but will 
never be able to transfer the highest epoch of ethical develop- 
ment into the period of boyhood, and thus essentially hasten 
the culture of the pupil. It is not true that the public school 
pupil passes through the same order of development as the 
pupil in the upper schools, only in a more condensed form — 
that is, more quickly and probably earlier. He does not 
pass through them any sooner, or in any shorter time, but in 
an abridged form, incompletely, in only a part of the stages. 
That will not keep us from introducing him also to the culture- 
matter of the latest epochs of development, in order that 
they may contribute to the ennoblement of his spiritual life 
according to the measure of apperceiving ideas at his disposal. 
But herewith, we say to ourselves, that we may only expect 
from the future, a more thorough comprehension, a deeper 
ethical effect of the culture-matter when he is met by the 
numerous inner experiences of the adult. What we mature 
in the pupil is, under favorable circumstances, a new ap- 
perception, or knowledge epoch, not an epoch of develop- 
ment. 

But could not those tendencies of the will, those traces 
which a newly gained insight leaves behind in the moral 
culture of the pupil, as soon as it is supported by strong 
feelings, be already regarded as tokens of a new epoch of 



122 APPERCEPTION. 

development? 1 But that would contradict all use of lan- 
guage. For when we speak of the epochs of development 
we think, first of all, of certain dominant groups of ideas, 
which imprint their character upon the thought, volition and 
action of any given period ; that is, of the sum total of new, 
valuable culture elements which were unfolded and developed 
in it. But it is assumed that the corresponding epochs of 
development in the individual show a similar stamp of intel- 
lectual life and aspiration, and at the same time present the 
best and most numerous apperception aids to the compre- 
hension of the universal epochs of development under ques- 
tion. Indeed it can be positively asserted that the stage for 
the most favorable apperception of the culture -content of an 
epoch of universal development, is likewise that of the cor- 
responding epoch in the individual. Accordingly an ethical 
epoch of development will be determined by the kind of 
moral volition which predominates in it, or begins to pre- 
dominate. 2 Hence, the highest epoch of development has 
been attained by him whose moral effort is practically free, 
or tries to free itself more and more, from the eudsemonistic 
reasons for action ; not, however, by the boy in whom ten- 
dencies to such freedom are present for the first time. For 
it is unquestionably true that more favorable conditions for 
the apperception of the highest epoch of development are 
present with the former than in the case of the latter; 

1 See Vogt in the explanations for the 21st Journal of the Society for 
Scientific Pedagogy, p. 30. (Jahrbuch d. V.f. w., P. XXI.) 

2 One need not on this account, as Vogt, Ibid, p. 35., presents to us, 
" represent the epoch by the image of a fixed point or a fixed surface, " 
but one may admit that the development of the individual is, in every 
epoch, completed quite gradually and includes a number of years. In- 
deed, as Willmann rightly observes, the growth of human power, 
considered as a whole, is more like a gradually ascending path than 
a flight of stairs. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 123 

mdeed, one may say, the most favorable of all. To this is 
added another consideration. We saw that, with the child, 
indications of the most varied attitudes toward ethical con- 
duct are shown relatively early. He need not wait until the 
highest stages of religious instruction have been reached 
to get a vague idea of the categorical imperative 1 , but 
this conception can be awakened much earlier by the 
unselfish, self-sacrificing action of the parents ; by the ex- 
amples of noble characters, which impress themselves 
indelibly on his mind, and thus leave traces behind in his 
moral disposition. How could we, under such conditions, 
distinguish one epoch of development from another, were 
the different stages not characterized by predominating, 
rather than isolated states of will ? The fact therefore 
remains, that knowledge epochs are not also always epochs 
of development in the historical sense, and that the boy does 
not attain to the highest form of the latter before his four- 
teenth year. 

But if it be firmly established that, for most pupils, the last 
epochs of individual development lie far beyond the school 
period, and if the culture-matter for each individual epoch of 
development is to be taken from the corresponding culture- 
epoch of the people, — then certain subject-matter, and indeed 
the most valuable and indispensable, may not come up at all in 
the public school. 2 That might be justifiable perhaps in the 
province of theory, but never in the practical province of moral 

1 The Categorical Imperative as developed by Kant may be stated as 
follows : " So act that, through your own will, the rules of your conduct 
might become universal laws. " In other words, if you want a test for 
your conduct, universalize it, imagine that everybody acts in the same way, 
then see if you could approve the result. — Ed. 

2 Ziller says : " The subject-matter for moral culture is expressly based 
upon the correspondence between the two lines of development." — Allg. 
Pddagogik, 2nd edition, p. 217. 



124 APPERCEPTION. 

and religious culture. For even if the pupil of the public 
school can not be conducted to the heights of art and science, 
still nothing must be lacking that is essential to his recognition 
of what is necessary for the happiness of the soul. He 
must also be led toward the ideal of a pure moral character. 
But here arises the necessity of his entering into maturer 
thoughts and purer sentiments, into such healing truths, as 
only the last and highest culture- epochs of his people have to 
offer him. 

We have seen that between the development of the in- 
dividual and that of his people, or humanity, there exists 
only a relative, not a complete correspondence. Education 
will accordingly have to take into consideration the great 
differences existing between the two lines of development, 
and especially will it have to establish firmly the succession 
of culture-matter, but not exclusively and without further 
ceremony, according to the course of historical culture. 

It is further proven that the moral development of the 
pupil, even with the best of instruction, does not close with 
his fourteenth year. Consequently the childish develop- 
ment — at least in the province of ethics < — passes through 
only a part of the culture epochs, and for this reason, there- 
fore, the selection of material for study cannot be based on 
the asserted correspondence of race and individual develop- 
ment, for otherwise the most valuable culture-matter would 
have to be withheld from the public school pupil. 

Against these conclusions it has been urged, in a 
sorrowful tone, the consideration that "it is always 
the public school alone that is kept in view ' ' ; that 
naturally the public school in its limited scope can « ' ex- 
hibit but very imperfectly" the path of culture and that it 
must consequently treat the development epochs in part 
too early. But from that the unreliability of the culture- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 125 

epoch theory would not follow. On the contrary, the theory 
would have strict validity for higher schools where there is 
more time at disposal. 1 

In reply to this, we have the following to offer If Ziller 

in the exposition of his theory of culture epochs keeps solely 
within the boundaries of the public school, it becomes the 
duty of the critical examiner to follow him in this province 
of experience, and there, first of all, to investigate the validity 
of his principle. Indeed, it is here alone that his opinion 
could be ascertained with some certainty, and the practica- 
bility of his theory be tested on a given pedagogical subject- 
matter. We hold with Ziller, that the highest principles of 
instruction must always be considered as universally valid, 
equally applicable to all schools and ages. If, then, it can 
be rightfully said concerning so important a principle as 
that of the selection and arrangement of the subject-matter 
of education in general, that it is really only applicable for 
higher schools, the principle must appear inadmissible from 
the very beginning. A principle that is perfectly valid only 
for the upper schools and allows the work of the public 
school to appear in so unfavorable a light, cannot be recog- 
nized as the highest, universally valid, educational law. 2 

But suppose its asserted validity were denied, even for 
higher schools? According to Ziller, the subject-matter of 
education is always u to be borrowed from that culture 
development which is parallel to the pupil's present condition 
of mind." 3 Ziller demands, that, wherever possible, every 

1 Thrandorf in Jahrbuch des V.f. w. Pad., XII., 709. 

2 If, according to him, subject-matter is treated "too early" in the 
public schools, it is, of course, not in its right place, and a sound peda- 
gogical principle should not admit at all such premature work. But if 
that matter can in reality be treated, then it has evidently nothing to do 
with the theory of culture epochs. 

» Ziller, Allg. Padayogik, 2nd edition, p. 260. 



126 APPERCEPTION. 

culture-epoch shall be presented to the pupil at the moment 
when his whole attitude of mind, natural as well as acquired 
through instruction, guarantees an apperception of the new as 
nearly perfect as possible." * 

A given topic, therefore, should not be presented until 
the moment when the pupil has reached the corresponding 
epoch of development; for not until then will he, as we saw 
above, apperceive most perfectly new thoughts and aspira- 
tions. Not until this time is his stage of mental develop- 
ment abreast of the corresponding culture-epoch. — But the 
highest stage of development, that of moral-religious freedom, 
comes with most people in the more mature period of youth 
or manhood ; a fact which, for evident psychological rea- 
sons, will not greatly alter the best curriculum of studies. 
For as long as the pupil still stands in complete outward 
dependence upon others, his actions will be naturally caused 
by eudaemonistic (even if not ignoble) motives ; as long as 
no responsible occupation places him in the midst of the 
battle of life, he lacks in great measure those inner experi- 
ences, doubts and needs such as are presupposed by the 
last period of religious development; in other words, he 
lacks the best apperceptive aids to a final adoption of the 
highest religious truths. 2 

As a consequence, according to the strict requirements 
of the principle, the presentation of the culture- epochs 
would have to be extended past the period of youth, and un- 
til then certain culture-matter would have to be kept from him. 

Thrandorf, Jahrbuch des V.f. w. Pad., XII., 109. 
2 " According to the inner psychological nature of everything ethical in 
character, knowledge and actions mutually condition each other ; moral 
maturity and elevation of spirit are never attainable without active, 
personal experience of life. Not only for, hut also through conduct, 
is moral sense developed." — Lazarus, Das Lebender Seele," 3d vol., p. 103. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 127 

Futhermore, according to Thrandorf's method, 1 matter of 
the highest ethical epoch, the life of Jesus and the history 
of the Apostles, would have to be treated at the middle 
period of the upper school, and thus at a time when " these 
phases of religious truth do not receive the full and conclusive 
estimation due them," but could be apperceived only in 
the spirit of the second stage of mental development. 2 

Here, too, then, even if not in the same degree as in the 
public school, there is either a premature presentation of 
culture-matter, or the necessity of withholding it from the 
pupil until past the school period. This shows us quite 
plainly that a strict carrying out of the culture-epochs is 
not possible in any of the existing schools, because the 
pupil does not pass through so many epochs of development 
that the matter of the separate culture stages could ever 
be added to a related, that is, the corresponding individual 
epoch. And only in so far as one gives up this require- 
ment- — which is, to be sure, the essence of Ziller's theory 
— will that theory ever be recognized as applicable. The 
thought of arranging the subject-matter of instruction in 
genetic order must be regarded, not as a sole and universally 
valid principle, but one to be taken into account along 
with others. 

If, according to this, we cannot deduce directly the 
3hild' s stages of apperception from a universal pyschological 
and historical proposition, nothing remains but to settle 
the question, propounded above, by a minute investigation 
of the conditions under which the subject-matter of 

iJahrbuch d. V.f.w.P., XX., 106. 

2 To be sure, Thrandorf thinks that that would exactly correspond to 
the different interpretations which Christianity has found in the course 
of time. But the pupil is not here for the purpose of living over again 
the retrogression of the human race from biblical to mediaeval Christianity. 



128 APPERCEPTION. 

education will be apperceived in the best manner. 
First of all, it is indeed clear that the matter to be taught 
must on the whole lie close to the child's experience. 
Since the latter has its root in the home soil, the material of 
the studies must be taken from the national treasures of 
knowledge, or at least stand in close relation to national in- 
terests, sentiments and ideas. It must, to be sure, be sub- 
ject-matter that apparently transfers the child into unknown 
regions, but yet in reality leads it back to the realm of its 
most familiar ideas, its daily needs and experiences. Such 
a choice of subject-matter presupposes a thorough analysis 
of the sphere of national thought, an exact knowledge of 
the lasting and permanently valuable possessions of the 
national culture. 

But from the nature of the latter, all cannot be presented 
to the child at every period and in like manner. We have 
already seen how the pupil* s gradual development puts limits 
to the application of a pedagogical principle that cannot be 
passed over with impunity. As the compass of its outward 
experiences arrives at a certain completion only after the 
work of years, so also does the breadth of its consciousness, 
the power to grasp and retain ideas as a whole, increase 
but gradually. The epoch of development in which the 
child is able to think only in pictures is followed by an- 
other in which it really gives him pleasure to lift himself in 
the abstract above the confusing variety of individual ob- 
jects up to the universal law, that is, to rule and concept. 

From the fanciful he advances to the real, from an imag- 
inative to a sensible and intelligent conception of the world. 
Many things that at first seemed to him historical facts, 
later on become poetical images. Certain experiences and 
conditions of mind — consider, for example, the complex 
of aesthetic feelings that arises from contemplation of works 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 129 

of art, the thoughts and feelings pertaining to the sexes, the 
interest in difficult political questions of the day, do not 
present themselves until the close of the youthful stage 
of development. Thus the pupil's power of appercep- 
tion is a constantly changing one, according to scope and 
nature of the experience obtained outside the school, and the 
stage of intellectual activity to which he has attained. But 
instruction must pay attention to this law of child devel- 
opment when choosing its subject-matter, in order that it 
may correspond to the changing power of conception, to the 
experience and interest of the pupil. Matter must not be 
offered, the comprehension of which demands certain necessary 
outer or inner experiences which are at the time still wanting 
and must be wanting, or the form of which presupposes a 
higher and more mature intellect than the pupil possesses. It 
must, however, first of all and principally, treat of that which 
lies nearest to the experience of the child. It must correspond 
to the epoch of mind arrived at, in order by means of this 
subject-matter, gradually to lift the child above that epoch. 

However important in general the foregoing didactic regu- 
lations for the choice of matter for instruction are, they 
evidently do not attain to the solution of the question as to 
what portion of instruction is to be allotted to the separate 
school years, and as to how this should be divided and ar- 
ranged for the whole period of school life. If we take into 
consideration merely the fact of the development of the 
child's mind, we gain for the period from the sixth to the 
fourteenth year, not the desired eight epochs of apperception, 
but at the most only two. This fact suggests, however, that 
these various epochs do not depend exclusively upon the un- 
changeable factors given in the child's development, but fully 
as much upon the nature of the subject-matter offered by in- 
struction. They are not something exclusively innate, but 



130 APPERCEPTION. 

can be, in a measure at least, artificially produced. Or still 
better, within the stages of the child's mind that are determined 
by fixed laws, instruction is able to create epochs of apper- 
ception, in accordance with the given psychical conditions, 
just as surely as the ability to apperceive depends essentially 
upon the range of thought already acquired. The power of 
apperception, however, is produced through instruction by 
means of such an arrangement of the teaching matter as will 
make the sequel intelligible from what precedes, " so that 
every previous subject best prepares the mind of the pupil 
for that which succeeds more or less closely." 1 That is 
brought about most naturally and perfectly by following the 
historical principle, by grouping the material with reference 
to the historical development which a definite phase of 
national thought has taken. " Especially does what goes 
before in a given subject contain the key to what follows, 
and following up the development of a subject leads most 
simply to an understanding of it." 2 While the child follows 
the progress of national culture or the facts of sacred his- 
tory from epoch to epoch, it receives indeed in each of these 
stages numerous ideas that prepare it for what is new in the 
next epoch. 

Everything that is learned in one epoch serves at once as 
a powerful aid to the understanding of what follows in the 
next higher ; that which has become, explains that which is 
becoming. A happier arrangement of material for the pur- 
pose of the most thorough and many-sided apperception, 
can scarcely be imagined. With its aid, it would seem that 

1 Herbart, Psychology as a Science, IX, 226; Stoy, Encyclopadie, p. 67, 
81. What is true in the oft quoted and oft misunderstood phrase, " Let 
all instruction advance without break," receives in the above require- 
ment its due. 

2 Willman, Didaktik als JBildungslehre, Vol. II., 214. Cf . also Karman 
in Rein's Pad. Studien, 1888, p. 201. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 131 

subject-matter can be assigned to each school year, for 
which the most favorable conditions for apperception are, 
relatively speaking, at hand, and through which certain 
epochs of apperception can be created within the limits of 
the capacities of child mind. 1 In the choice of matter 
according to historical points of view we discover all that is 
justifiable in Ziller's theory of culture- epochs. 2 

Finally, the apperceptive power of the pupil can be 
increased by the sequence of topics in the various studies ; 
so it can be also by the right choice and arrangement of 

1 These, nevertheless, do not always coincide with the actual periods, of 
development in the mind of the child. The latter, rather, comprehend 
several of the former in themselves; the pupil, too, will not "pass 
through and experience " the culture-epochs, in the strict sense of the 
word, hut only busy himself with them, in order, as vividly as possible, 
with the aid of fancy, to picture them to himself as historical facts, to 
understand them thoroughly, and to unite them with the feelings of 
hearty sympathy. If such a thorough and sympathetic grasp of the sub- 
ject-matter of the studies can be called " experiencing " it we have no ob- 
jections to make. 

2 That which is untenable in it will be hidden from many by the ambi- 
guity of certain universal concepts. For example, the defence is made 
that Ziller only asserts a correspondence between individual and race 
development — "on the whole" — but there are deduced from this ex- 
ceedingly indefinite expression very comprehensive, definite, and there- 
fore far-reaching conclusions. First of all, the parallelism (or more 
recently, the analogy) between the development of the race and that of 
the individual is touched upon, in order, without further ceremony, to 
substitute pupil for individual where pedagogical conclusions are to be 
drawn. The concept " epoch of development " is used just so long as one 
moves in the universal, abstract requirements of the theory. But as soon 
as one descends to the concrete facts of the school practice, that concept 
receives in a twinkling quite a different meaning, that of the apperception 
epoch. And now one can indeed willingly grant to the defender of the 
theory that in general the culture-matter is best apperceived if it is pre- 
sented in historical sequence. But if that is to be the essence and real 
meaning of the theory of culture epochs, wherefore the lofty words about 
the two developments that run fully parallel with one another, which in 
their chief stages must correspond perfectly ? Cf . Jahrbuch d. V. f. w 
P., XXI., 165; Ziller, Allg. Pddag., p. 216. ' 



132 APPERCEPTION. 

that which is carried on side by side ; in other words, by 
the proper coordination of studies. It becomes clear that a 
simultaneous treatment of the same topic in different subjects 
according to several points of view, or the introduction of 
closely related objects and facts, must essentially assist mental 
assimilation. Then the ideas and interests gained from 
the one province of knowledge affect the related provinces as 
apperceiving powers which fix the new in consciousness as 
something relatively familiar. They assist understanding, 
because they constitute in some cases the conditions of apper- 
ception, and in others a sufficient explanation of enigmatical 
phenomena, thus helping to complete the apprehension and 
insuring a more fundamental grasp of the subject. But they 
do this so much the more reliably, in that they appear, not 
years after when obstructed by other and totally different 
ideas and interests, but at once and with undiminished 
force. Thus arises that harmonious state of thought 
and feeling which, like the right mood, is especially 
favorable to the assimilation of knowledge. Accordingly 
there is to be recommended such a choice and arrangement 
of studies that at each stage the largest possible amount of 
related matter may be treated at one time, and thus be 
brought into a unity in consciousness. 

Let us now sum up briefly the requirements that have 
revealed themselves in reference to the object of appercep- 
tion. In general this direction holds good : Offer to the 
child always that knowledge for whose thorough assimilation 
the most favorable conditions are present or easy to create. 

How can this be done ? 

1. Such materials of knowledge must be chosen as lie 
close to child experience in general, and likewise to the 
consciousness of the people, i. e., the subject-matter of 
national culture. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 133 

2. They must, as regards content and form, take into 
consideration certain peculiarities of the child's intellectual 
development. 

3. They are to be arranged in such a manner that every 
topic shall create for the following ones numerous strong 
aids to apperception; i. e., according to historical sequence 
(Law of Propaedeutics). 

4. The various parallel subjects of the curriculum are 
to be arranged in such a manner that in each grade as 
many as possible allied topics may be associated, so that 
what is related in fact, may be related in the consciousness 
of the child (Law of Coordination, or Concentration of 
Studies). 

In so far as the simultaneous realization of the foregoing 
requirements does not meet insurmountable difficulties they 
may be regarded as valid. And indeed in most cases they 
will support and confirm one another. Yet the possibility is 
by no means excluded that one or the other requirements 
will clash with the rest. Certain material may be chosen in 
accordance with the historical principle, which in content 
and form expects too much from the child at a certain epoch 
of his development. Or the unequal rate of historical pro- 
gress in the different branches does not admit of a useful 
concentration in the instruction. And the case is also con- 
ceivable that, in the realization of the third and fourth re- 
quirements, the intrinsic value of the subject-matter for 
instruction might not receive its full due. In all these 
cases it is advisable to limit one requirement by another, as 
far as is necessary, and not to lose sight of the chief prin- 
ciple while considering special applications. This refers to 
the last two directions ; while the first two, which have 
reference to given, unchangeable facts, can not be sub- 
jected to any limitation. It does not lie within the province 



134 APPEECEPTION. 

of this discussion to sketch a complete curriculum of studies 
in accordance with the foregoing principles, even for one 
grade of school. Only a few practical conclusions may be 
permitted to us in connection with these general require- 
ments. 

If we ask what historical subject-matter for moral culture 
must at all events have a place in the scheme of instruction, 
not merely for moral and religious, but also for psychological 
reasons, we find that custom ascribes the first place to stories 
from the Sacred Writ. And properly, too. For its figures 
stand close to the consciousness of the people as very few 
others do ; its thoughts are bound up with our most sacred 
feelings and convictions. As long as our people see the 
source of their belief in the Holy Scriptures ; as long as 
they, like their fathers, are edified by the examples of its 
holy men, just so long will biblical views and sentiments, 
biblical thoughts and precepts — even in the language pe- 
culiar to them — constitute the essence of our national 
thought. However remote they seem to be from our 
country, the Scriptures are still the basis of the national 
culture in the best sense of the word. That they must 
stand in the foreground of public school instruction, is 
the universal agreement of the German people. Only in 
this do opinions differ, — the order in which they shall be 
presented, whether in concentric circles or in a straight line ; 
whether sacred history is to be brought forward only once 
according to the chief points in its epochs, or whether each 
story is to be offered repeatedly. 

The law of propaedeutics undoubtedly demands progress 
according to historical points of view, a gradual traversing 
of the matter in accordance with the historical course ol 
biblical development. This manner of procedure offers 
the opportunity of always bringing before the child great 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 135 

connected epochs of history. 1 Then the pupil will not be 
constantly thrown from one sphere of thought to another by 
means of numerous isolated stories, but the inner connection 
that exists between the personages and events of the same 
sacred epoch, the similarity of exterior circumstances ac- 
companying them, of geographical surroundings, of customs 
and usages, of the conditions of life and the like, make it 
possible for the child soon to feel at home in this world, 
otherwise strange to him. There are indeed the same re- 
ligious sentiments and intuitions, the same social affairs 
and customs, the same planes and conditions of culture 
which are constantly recurring in the various stories. And 
how often and naturally is opportunity given for compari- 
sons, for looking backward and forward, for the perfecting 
and repetition of what is already learned ! The instruction 
advances constantly and yet gives nothing completely new. 
In a word, closely related historical matter creates in the 
numerous related ideas that it awakens the most favorable 
conditions for their successful apperception. In addition to 
this, religious instruction that progresses according to epochs 
of history gives the pupil sufficient time thoroughly to ab- 
sorb and appropriate the subject-matter. It is not of im- 
portance to the child to "go through" the subject in two or 
three years at any cost ; that the knowledge shall surely be- 
come the intellectual property of the pupil during his school 
life is the important thing. By going forward so slowly, a 
thorough mastery of the individual stories is rendered pos- 
sible. The child gains time, not merely to grasp firmly the 

1 Our school programs, often suffering from the diffusion of instruction, 
appear to be in especial need of such important, unitary classic matter. 
Indeed Geibel, to whom we owe so many encouraging words about moral 
education and instruction, sees in the motley array of these programs, 
and the hasty treatment of heterogeneous matter, a backward and harmful 
tendency of our modern culture. 



136 APPERCEPTION. 

sacred events p er se, but to make for himself a clear picture 
of their historical background, and to see the conditions of 
human action. We can seek to follow the motives and in- 
tentions of the acting personages, to recognize their feelings 
and thoughts, and thus gain deeper understanding of histori- 
cal events. By entering thus into strange manners of 
thought and aspirations, the child now cultivates an inter- 
course with historical personages from which a strong sym- 
pathetic fellow-feeling, a lively interest, readily arises. It 
is our conviction, resting upon years of experience, that such 
a deep, cheerful grasp of sacred history is not possible in 
the restless haste with which instruction usually advances 
and is compelled to advance according to " concentric 
circles." And even this fact, confirmed by many conscien- 
tious teachers, that the essential content of sacred history 
can never be assimilated by the tender youth in two or three 
years, and much less infused into heart and disposition, 
argues an extension and lengthening of the course in biblical 
history, and a laying aside or modification of the concentric 
circles. 

To be sure, in defense of the repeated appearance of the 
same historical matter, one may argue that the lesson will 
tend to become more firmly impressed on the mind, and 
that the right understanding will perhaps reveal the second 
time what remained obscure to the child at first. But 
we fear that though in this manner it is perhaps more 
firmly impressed (and mechanically at that) , it is not apper- 
ceived any better. For it is a psychological fact that a 
mere superficial grasp of the new usually kills the interest 
in it. What one has learned once, but not rightly, has 
too little attraction and too many known elements to be 
able to hold the attention long. The right apperception is 
lacking, or a very superficial apperception is accomplished, 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 137 

not because the subject-matter offers too much that is new, 
but because it offers too little. Jean Paul remarks in one 
place, when looking back at the rest ess traffic of the great 
city : ' ' We become indifferent to men only when we see 
them often and not rightly, when we associate with many 
without becoming rightly acquainted with one." Might not 
that hold good also with historical characters, who hasteu, 
according to the " concentric circles," in motley array every 
year or two across the threshhold of the childish con- 
sciousness? Does not many a pupil become frightfully 
indifferent to the ideal figures of biblical history and to 
those of his country because he had intercourse with too 
mauy, one after the other, without " being rightly acquainted 
with any one " ? 

Rather assimilate one subject once, but thoroughly, than 
busy ourselves with it repeatedly, but without deeper in- 
terest! That which is to become a power in the pupil, and 
to be closely welded to his most cherished thoughts and 
feelings, must not pass hurriedly and unconnectedly before 
his soul like the images of a kaleidoscope ; it must occupy 
him long and uninterruptedly. 

The more thoroughly and successfully the pupil enters into 
the religious epochs of development, the more does a further 
reason for the superiority of the instruction that advances 
in a straight line assert its value ; — everything that pre- 
cedes prepares the mind of the pupil for what follows. In- 
deed often the religious views of earlier epochs of sacred 
history furnish the key to an understanding of the later 
epochs of religious life, such as the great deeds of the divine 
Teacher. The Old Testament has especial value as a neces- 
sary epoch, preparatory for Christianity as a discipline es- 
sential to a reception of Christ. "The pictures of the Old 
Testament become prototypes to those of the New. In 



138 APPERCEPTION. 

Israel's priesthood, in its kingdom and its age of prophets, 
is concentrated the Old Testament prototype of Christianity. 1 
Through these types the Old Testament becomes likewise an 
elementary school for the comprehension of Christ and his 
works. How could the holy work of reconciliation be pre- 
sented more clearly or in a more plastic manner than by the 
whole sacrificial service of the priesthood ; how could the 
all-embracing position of Christ as Lord be expressed to his 
disciples and to the world more comprehensibly than by the 
image of the King in the realm of God ? Therefore the New 
Testament speaks almost entirely in Old Testament figures, 
even when it speaks of New Testament matters. — The New 
Testament cannot speak otherwise than in Old Testa- 
ment language ; for the Old Testament is the lexicon of 
the New: from it are borrowed the words, figures, ideas, — 
the whole language, but everything in spirit and in truth 
filled with that life, the shadow and prototype of which is in 
the Old Testament." If that is the case, then the pupil who 
by a longer study of the Old Testament stories has been 
made intimately acquainted with their contents and spirit 
will evidently enter most deeply into the instructive matter 
of the New Testament ; at any rate, more easily and surely 
than the child that has been led in quick course through the 
most varied epochs of sacred history, and in whose mind the 
most diverse religious conceptions have been already 
mingled. 

If, from the reasons just presented, the arrangement of 
biblical history according to historical principles, appears the 
right one, it still behooves us before we finally decide, to 
test some considerations in opposition to our assumption, 

1 See the beautiful and convincing proof of this in Max Frommel's 
Charakterbildern zur Charakterbildung, from which we have cited the 
above passage (p. 38, etc.)- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 139 

which are deduced from other and not less correct principles. 
It is said that our arrangement of matter does not take the 
child's power of comprehension sufficiently into consideration, 
that it offers certain stories at a period when the proper 
capability for apperceiving them is not yet present. Now, 
it may indeed happen that at the time the child may lack 
either the necessary inner experience or the required maturity 
and keenness of judgment for the deeper comprehension of 
certain historical facts and sacred truths. But instruction 
according to "concentric circles" does not remove this diffi- 
culty. 

For we have here to do with conditions of apperception 
which do not make their appearance suddenly, in a day, or 
even in a year or two, but which are to be looked for only 
after a much longer time in the next stage of development. 
Accordingly that for which the child is not yet mature 
enough will have to be treated, not in ' ' the next course or 
concentric circle," but much later, perhaps at the end of 
his school days. 

It is therefore advisable, at all events in the last year of 
school, to follow the instruction in biblical history, for the 
purpose of connection, with a repetition of the Gospel, to- 
gether with supplementary biblical and poetical selections 
to fill out the previous omissions. But much of what is 
thought too difficult for certain grades is, however, to be 
included in those matters, the ability for the apperception 
of which can be formed in the recitation, if the teacher will 
avail himself of the advantage presented by an arrangement 
of the selections according to the law of propaedeutics. 
The instruction approaches this in so far as it follows the 
course of the unfolding of the Gospel, proceeding essentially 
from simple, easily understood conditions and religious 
truths to more complicated and difficult ones. This is in 



140 APPERCEPTION. 

imitation of the Divine Teacher who likewise has raised 
mankind only gradually from incomplete notions to riper 
knowledge. By this is not, however, to be understood that 
we detain the pupil purposely in erroneous, specifically 
Jewish ways of thinking ; much rather should such religious 
prejudices, when encountered by the child in the Bible, find 
their correction through reference to the Christian con- 
science of our own time. By such a course we are enabled 
to present to the children the divine truths in such a sequence 
as corresponds approximately to their successive stages of 
spiritual maturity. "We can announce the great divine 
secrets, as they reveal themselves in the work of redemption 
through Christ, to the pupil at a time when a sufficient 
measure of inner experience has prepared in him the right 
receptivity for them. 1 Is not that taking sufficient account 
of the development of the child ? Enough, — we are not 
afraid that our course of instruction will reserve for a time 
too much of the actual facts of the Gospel. We admit readily 
that the first stories of the Old Testament are not appro- 
priate to begin with. We have Bible stories, the facts of 
which lie much nearer to the religious conscience of the 
people and the experience of the child; e. g., those stories 
of the New Testament whose content the child has learned 
to know and love, or at least for which a lively interest has 

i Nothing is indeed so apt to close the child's heart against divine 
things as a too early introduction to their knowledge. But what deep 
secrets of the Christian faith are only too often discussed with young 
children who lack entirely the experiences necessary to understand them ! 
"What can result hut verbalism, which fastens itself like mildew on the 
youthful spirit ? The understanding can of course at length reach the 
verbal meaning of most of the teachings of the faith. But for real ap- 
preciation, for actual conviction, there is need of the help of a soul in 
whose own experiences the word of Scripture finds a clear echo. And for 
such spiritual comprehension of the sublimest secrets of our faith we 
should indeed grant our little ones the right time. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 141 

been roused in him through the chief events of the church 
year, and more particularly the festivals. For the solemn 
celebration by the church of those important days, the 
popular customs at the various festivals, all the small and 
great joys that they are wont to bring to the simple-minded 
youth, are so closely bound up in the heart that in and with 
these joyous memories the child brings with him into the 
school strong and lively apperception helps for more than 
one group of Bible stories. Now just as the Christian father 
does not neglect at Christmas time, under the bright rays 
of the Christmas tree, to open the eyes and hearts of his 
children to the meaning of the day through the simple 
narration of the Gospel of Glad Tidings, so the teacher, 
rightly and with success, will also announce even to the little 
ones of the first grade the joyful message of the Christ-child. 
He will, in connection with the child's own daily life and 
experience, and with the usages and customs of the neighbor- 
hood, make the journey with him in the course of the school 
year, up to the main events of the church year, and in this 
way give the chief days the right religious meaning ; he will 
associate the sacred stories with the strongest and most joy- 
ous memories of the little ones. He will further lead the 
interest of the children from those stories as the starting 
point to the life and work of the Saviour ; he will relate to 
them how the dear Lord went about doing good everywhere, 
healing the sick and blessing the children, and in this way 
he will teach them to love Him as the best friend of man. 
Thus at the very opening of the sacred history appears a 
group of stories which, being connected by the unity of their 
content and carried through the church life of the present, 
are best calculated to meet the interest of the little folks. 
It is not only psychologically possible, but we are morally 
bound, to begin the religious instruction with the little ones, 



142 APPERCEPTION. 

and that, too, in the course of the first school year. What- 
ever is, in future, to be a power in the child, must from a 
very early age grow up with his thinking and feeling. 

Accordingly, when we at first anticipate the connected 
history of the Gospel with stories from the New Testament, 
and then in the next grade follow the church festivals and 
treat such stories further, although also partly for edification ; 
when we still further decide from pedagogical motives on 
another closing recapitulation of sacred history in connection 
with Bible reading, all this shows that the historical principle 
cannot prevail without modification, but must suffer a re- 
striction from another equally important principle. To be 
sure, the objection that once going over the chief points 
in the history is no warrant for the permanent retention of 
the matter, is not able to shake that principle. For it is 
quite in accord with the latter to pass over and live through 
the Bible stories again and again — to be sure not in the 
form of mechanical, arbitrary repetition, which is sure to be 
followed by weariness, but rather in the way of thoughtful 
and thorough comprehension of the meaning. In so far as 
on principle we ask ourselves, when we take up any new 
topic, what known ideas from earlier stories can be used 
for the purpose of comparing and filling out, confirming 
and illustrating the important facts and truths contained in 
the story ; in so far as in this way we put the newly learned 
everywhere in relation to the earlier acquired religious 
thoughts of the child, we impress upon him the facts of the 
Gospel history, if not in a better way than that of instruction 
in concentric circles, at least in a manner leading to results 
quite as lasting. Such explanatory repetitions have, besides, 
the advantage of not appearing to the child as such, and 
therefore keep off the oppressive feeling of mental stagna- 
tion. They furnish opportunity, further, of setting such parts 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 143 

of the history as could not , at first be fully grasped by the 
children in the light of other facts at a later time, and thus 
securing for them a complete understanding. In this way 
the culture quality of the harder parts of the Gospel certainly 
secures due treatment, and it is not to be feared that, as 
Dorpfeld * says, "the ideas of the great personalities of 
the Old Testament especially will remain entirely too 
childish." 

Finally, we have still to consider how the religious in- 
struction (of the public schools) can best satisfy the 
demands of the fourth of the above named principles, the law 
of Concentration, in relation to choice and arrangement of 
the subject-matter. It of course goes without saying that in 
its own field this instruction must not separate and tear apart 
what naturally belongs together. It must not let Bible read- 
ing, Bible quotation, Bible story, catechism, and religious 
hymn go their own separate ways. That would amount to 
deliberately dissipating the child's thoughts and purposely 
making the learning more difficult. Religious instruction is, 
on the contrary, a connected whole, and its basis in all the 
grades is biblical history. 2 From the facts of the Gospel, 
the child gains under the direction of the teacher these moral 

1 Rector F. W. Dorpfeld of Ronsdorf near Elberfeld-Barmen in Rhenish 

Prussia. 

2 Rompler expresses himself in the same sense in his Manual for 
Teachers in the proper Treatment of Biblical History. He regards it as 
quite proper even in middle and upper grades to base all the religious in- 
struction on that in biblical history (p. 12). For the instruction in bib- 
lical history furnishes in connection with certain didactic portions all 
that the children of the public schools need in the way of religious and 
moral culture (p. 23). Especially noticeable is the proposition to sub- 
stitute the name " Religion" in the Roster for all classes, since it would 
consequently be left to the discretion of the religious instructor, whether 
in his recitation to-day or to-morrow he makes use of a story or a proposi- 
tion or the contents of a whole book in the Bible, etc., provided only he 
cover the prescribed ground (p. 12). 



144 APPERCEPTION. 

and religious truths as they are laid down in church creed 
and Bible proverb; and the exalted, pious frame of mind 
gained by earnest absorption in biblical history finds its 
permanent expression in the religious hymn. Proverb, 
catechism, prayer and hymn are the blossom and fruit of 
one tree — the story of the Gospel. And, as little as blossom 
and fruit can be thought of without the stem or trunk that 
bears them, so little can those forms of religious instruction, 
in the public schools at least, be separated from the his- 
torical ground on which they grew up. To put these into 
the closest connection with one another and with biblical 
history means to prepare for them the best helps to apper- 
ception. On this account the course in biblical history 
should control the choice of the other religious matter con- 
nected with it. In particular, no teacher, if he prefers the 
historical to the systematical method of instruction in the 
catechism, ought to be prevented from following his convic- 
tion, provided only that the scholars are brought to an 
understanding and into sure possession of the prescribed 
amount. 1 

In the above we have given the instruction in biblical his- 
tory a relatively detailed exposition, in order to show as 
plainly as possible by one example how we mean to realize 
the four fundamental principles relating to choice of matter 
and its arrangement, and how each is modified through the 
others. Now, then, we can be brief in speaking of the other 
subjects of the course. 

Of the secular subjects, the German popular fairy tales 
have rightly found an abiding place in school instruction. 
They have great national educational value, since they reflect 

1 Whether the religious instruction is to he brought into relation with 
the other subjects of instruction and in how far this should take place 
cannot be discussed here. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 145 

the thoughts and feelings, the naive view of creation charac- 
teristic of the youthful period of our people, and since they 
disclose the noblest traits in the souls of the people — fidelity 
and moral purity. Above all they are in sympathy with the 
child's way of looking at things, — his yearnings and feel- 
ings. The persons in the fairy tales belong to the simple 
conditions of the village or small town, and where kings and 
princes enter into the story, the court life is represented in a 
very childlike manner. In general these people think and 
feel altogether like children. This shows itself no less in 
their simple humor than in the judgment of others' motives 
and intentions. Just as the child knows only good and bad 
people in his intercourse, according to the sympathy or antip- 
athy which they inspire in him, so also in the fairy tales the 
persons are either good or bad. In them the impatient feel- 
ing of justice so characteristic of young people is always 
satisfied. We see even here on earth in these tales the good 
rewarded and the bad punished. The fairy tale lingers with 
especial fondness in the animal kingdom, in this respect cor- 
responding exactly to the childish inclination that loves best 
to regard animals as playfellows. And just as the little 
folks lend them human thoughts and motives, so also the 
fairy tale makes the grim bear, the voracious wolf, and the 
cunning fox appear in the story as equally privileged com- 
panions of man. Neither the child nor the fairy tale have 
any definite consciousness of time ; therefore it says so 
often: — "A long time ago there lived — ," "Once upon 
a time — ." And space, too, presents no bounds to their 
imagination, for there is no definite place, no definite scene of 
action named; but house and yard, garden and field and 
woods, where the child is at home, are the external world of 
the fairy tale. What lies beyond the dark woods belongs, 
alike for child and fairy tale, to the realm of the mysterious 



146 APPERCEPTION. 

and wonderful. And it is precisely the wonderful and the 
magical that both love. The critical understanding does not 
yet make itself dominant and seek after the causes of things 
and events, distinguishing between the possible and the im- 
possible, but the imagination has full sway. The imaginative 
view of the world is common to both. Accordingly the fairy 
tale must be considered congenial matter for early youth and 
must be assured of a preferred place at the beginning of 
school instruction. 1 

The fairy tale is followed by the heroic saga. This ac- 
quaints us with that stirring period, when German power and 
spirit for the first time step forward in the dawn of history 
and maintain themselves victorious and glorious in the struggle 
with the mighty powers of nature and with foreign peoples. 
Their gigantic figures still live on in the mouth and heart of 
our people, expressing their own strong points and weak- 
nesses with especial vividness. Since the saga treads earthly 
ways more than the f airy tale and turns with preference tc 
human figures and deeds, as it connects its tales with definite 
persons and places, and not seldom mingles with these some 
real historical facts, so it forms the natural transition from 
the fairy tale to history ; it carries over the imaginative view 
of the world characteristic of the child into the rational. 

1 It is here presupposed that a pedagogically wise choice has been 
made from the multitude of available tales. — It is not seldom that one 
hears the opinion expressed that those meritorious collectors and re- 
hearsers of the German popular fairy tales, the Brothers Grimm, were 
quite far from ever intending to present in their book for young people a 
new material for culture and instruction. This is contradicted most 
directly by an expression of Jacob Grimm's. On New Year's day, 1813, he 
sent his friend TVigand his little book with the words: "Your children 
will learn a great deal out of the book, I hope. It is our definite purpose 
that the book shall be regarded as an educational one. Only you must 
wait till they can understand, and then you must not give too much at 
once, but little by little, always a crumb of this sweet food.'" — Deutsche 
Rundschau, 1885, pp. 55, ff. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 147 

And still another, an ethical quality, makes it appear a spe- 
. dally appropriate matter of instruction for the growing boy. 
Experience teaches that not all moral ideas unfold at the 
same time and in equal measure in the human mind ; that 
rather at certain periods one or another exercises a kind of 
predominance over the rest. We have already seen how, 
for example, in every one the idea of inner freedom (i. e., the 
ideal of a will that guides itself not according to subjective 
reasons, sensual feelings of pleasure or pain, but without ex- 
ception, strictly according to the best objective insight) 
reaches realization only relatively late. Even the hearty 
affection and devotion to a person, such as we often notice 
touchingly exemplified in children, is still in the most cases 
very far from pure, disinterested benevolence. One idea, 
however, rules without exception in the boyhood of every 
one, and that is the idea of perfection, or, better, there is 
one yearning in the mind of the boy — that of the exercise 
of power, the joy in the strong will, and the adventurous 
deed. Visit the play-grounds of our boys. Nothing but ex- 
ceptional strength, bodily vigor, and an energetic will are 
of any account here. Whoever in the military games and 
wrestling matches is always victorious, by reason of bodily 
strength and intellectual superiority, is obeyed by the whole 
crowd ; the weakling, however, or lax character, let him show 
ever so much good-naturedness and agreeableness, does not 
gain recognition. Pestalozzi, provided with all the best 
qualities of the heart, but dreamy and awkward, was teased 
by ills playfellows as "Harry Wonderful of Foolsdom" ; 
while the determined and skillful grandson of Astyages on 
the other hand was chosen by the Medean boys as their king. 
With what joy do the young listen to the tales of the glorious 
old heroes of the early days ! They are certainly not in- 
different to the gentleness of temper and purity of mind that 



148 APPERCEPTION. 

is so praised in them ; but what excites them the most, what 
pleases them beyond all, is still the tremendous power and 
the defiant courage. Moreover, the child does not have at 
this time an equal receptivity for all ideas ; he must first live 
through his period of force and have his hero, with whom he 
fights and suffers, on whose will his own grows strong and 
matures. Let us then not begrudge him such an ideal, but 
let us give the saga the place that it deserves. The epic 
should form the beginning of the instruction in history. For 
this is just what rouses a multitude of apperceptive aids in 
the boy when it sings of the deeds and victories of human 
power ; when it tells how a strong will overcomes even giants 
and goes forth undaunted out of years of disgraceful impris- 
onment. The boy needs a hero that he understands, for 
whom he has a warm interest, and whom he can emulate — 
then give him at the right time his Siegfried and his Dietrich, 
that their example may light him onward. 1 

But what is true of the German saga may surely, one 
would think, be maintained also in regard to the Hellenic 
sagas, the history of Achilles and Ulysses. Indeed they 
reflect the same period of civilization and correspond to the 
mental constitution of youth as few epics do, so that they 
have not seldom been preferred in school to our own heroic 
sagas. But the latter are certainly nearer to the individu- 
ality of a German boy than those of the Greeks are. For 
they are the heroes of his people, speaking his language, 
living in his country — are the bold heroes into whose world 
of thought and deed he has already been introduced by the 
stories of the neighborhood, the castle-ruins gray with age, 
the knights' armor and weapons, popular belief and legend. 
All these of themselves attract the individuality of a German 

1 Zillig in Jahrbuch des Vereinsfiir wissenschaftliche Padagogik, XVI., 
p. 39. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 149 

boy. 1 But how different is it in the case of the Homeric 
sagas ! Strange names and figures, strange customs and 
habits, an entirely different landscape with its peculiar 
flora, all these prevent a full appreciation of the elements of 
those sagas which otherwise are so beautifully adapted to 
mental constitution of the young, because they render the 
apperception of the new, difficult to the boy who has to be 
made to feel at home in the prehistoric period of Greece. It 
follows from this, that the German boy is to be introduced 
first of all to the national epics, and that through these the 
foreign sagas are then to be appropriated. When the ele- 
mentary instruction in history of the public schools has made 
them familiar with the Nibelungen Tales, our boys in the 
higher classes, stimulated perhaps by the instruction in 
German, may choose for themselves the sagas of Ulysses 
and Achilles as reading. 2 

Finally, so far as concerns the material of profane history 
in the public school, it can scarcely admit of doubt after 
the preceding exposition that it must be gathered not from 
universal history, but first of all from the history of the 
German people. Foreign civilized nations are to receive 
attention only in so far as they have exercised an essential 
influence that the child can be made to understand on the 
development of our civilized life or of the history of the 
Gospel. But those historical facts are always to be made 

1 Compare the author's treatise on " The German Saga in Historical In- 
struction in the People's Schools." — Kehr's Padagogische Blatter, 1876, 
pp. 202, ff. 

2 Against the treatment of Robinson Crusoe in the first course (per- 
haps in second grade) we may mention the fact that it is not a material for 
national culture, that it is too far removed from the outward and inward 
experience of the child in this grade, and therefore presumes decidedly 
too much on his activity of imagination and his moral conscience. "We 
agree, therefore, entirely with the doubts expressed by Hartmann in this 
regard. — Sdchsische Schulzeitung, 1887, p. 175. 



150 APPERCEPTION. ■ 

prominent that testify to the gradual progress in intellectual 
and material life, those facts that stand in causal connection 
with the civil, religious, social and economical institutions 
and conditions of our time. In this way the history of the 
several states becomes the history of civilization; the past 
empties into the present with as full a stream as possible ; 
the material of culture ever remains near to the national 
sphere of thought and so also near to the experience and in- 
terest of the child. 

The arrangement of the subject-matter of the course will 
here in the main follow the historical principle likewise, 
although in details the other pedagogical principles may make 
modifications necessary. In this connection we can refer the 
reader to our remarks on instruction in biblical history. 

In other fields of instruction, as in history it appears that 
the pupil's power of apperception is not dependent solely on 
the unchanging factors connected with his mental develop- 
ment, but that it can be essentially increased through appro- 
priate choice and distribution of the subject-matter of 
instruction. How much easier and better would be the 
apperception, with how much greater success would be the 
learning, if the geographical matter were put in closer con- 
nection with the history; if natural philosophy illustrated 
the progress in human work, if drawing followed the develop- 
ment of the fine arts, if arithmetic drew its matter principally 
from subjects dealing with material things, — to demonstrate 
all this would be as interesting as it would be important. 
In these matters we have made only isolated beginnings, 
although they are full of promise. Much individual work 
is still to be done, and much credit is still to be gained. 
But we do not deceive ourselves, when we seek progress in 
methods preferably in that direction designated by the laws 
of propaedeutics and of concentration. To select the material 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 151 

for instruction, and then to bring these laws as far as pos- 
sible into consonance with one another and with other 
principles, should be, in every subject, the most important 
problem of the student of methodology. 

After the teacher has satisfied the demands to be made 
regarding the object of apperception, he has further to take 
care that all the helps to apperception that already exist in 
the mind of the scholar or that may easily be made effective, 
shall be turned to account. He must therefore turn his 
attention to the subject that apperceives ; viz., the child. 

2. Pedagogical Demands with Reference to the 
Apperceiving Subject. 

(Investigation, enlargement and utilization of the child's store 
of experience.) 

In general, with reference to the apperceiving subject, the 
teacher must see to it that the pupil holds in readiness 
numerous similar, strong and well arranged ideas for the 
new material that the instruction is to bring to the understand- 
ing. 

This presupposes, however, not only familiarity with 
child-nature in general, and its stages of development, but 
also in particular a thorough knowledge of the peculiar store 
of ideas possessed by the pupils of a particular school, and 
a deep insight into head and heart of one's own scholars. 
Both do not fall to the lot of the born educator ; they must 
be laboriously acquired through long years of conscientious 
observation. For this purpose it is not enough to know the 
pupil merely in the few school hours in which only a portion 
of his ego -manifests itself, and that not always the most im- 
portant part, nor is it enough to undertake to judge him by 
his reports. It is necessary to hunt for his individual traits 



152 APPERCEPTION. 

on the play-ground, on walks and at celebrations, where he 
appears much more free and unconstrained among his play- 
fellows. It is necessary to cultivate active intercourse with 
the parents, and in general with the circle of people to whom 
the scholar belongs ; not less necessary is it through pure, 
unselfish benevolence to keep the heart of the child open to 
us, if a deeper view into his soul is to be our portion. Ex- 
tremely difficult it will of course always remain to see into 
and understand the child at the commencement of instruc- 
tion, when as a stranger he comes to school for the first 
time. What does the teacher know of the great work of 
mental creation that has been going on in each and every 
child, and of all that he has lived through and experienced in 
six long years? It can not cause us wonder then, that there 
are still in the pedagogical world opposing views in vogue in 
regard to the number of apperceiving ideas, feelings and 
desires that the child gains before instruction begins. Some 
believe that in the case of the elementary pupil we must not 
presuppose anything, nor reckon on any, or at least many 
helps to apprehension derived from his experience. They 
think that instruction, at least at the very first, must 
commence quite at the beginning and create something 
entirely new ; it must ever remain in irreconcilable contradic- 
tion to the life and doings of the child outside of the school. 
Opposed to this pessimistic view stands on the other extreme 
one that is quite too optimistic. Such views are held by all 
those who point to the acquired and innate abilities of the 
children and believe we cannot presuppose too much in 
them and who therefore, without asking about the store of 
apperceiving ideas existing in the child, with enviable care- 
lessness and security strike out boldly to teach. If the 
teacher is ever called upon to choose his position in a con- 
flict of opinions, and through original investigation to form 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 153 

his own conviction, such, is the case here. It appears to us 
that the investigation (difficult as it may be) of the mental 
products gained by the pupil before the school age, is espe- 
cially necessary and requisite for all instruction that does 
not wish to build on a sandy foundation. Important reasons 
support this view. — 

Jean Paul says of the child, that it learns more in the 
first three years of its life than an adult in his three years 
at the university ; that a circumnavigator of the globe is 
indebted for more notions to his nurse than to all the peoples 
of the world with whom he has come in contact. It is, in 
fact, astounding what a relatively immense crowd of ideas 
a human being gains in the first years. He gets acquainted 
with the thousand things of home, street, garden, field, 
wood, the wonders of the heavens, the manifold events of 
nature, the land and people of the neighborhood, and 
learns to call most of them by name ; he learns to use a great 
part of the vocabulary of his mother tongue, and its most 
important forms of word and sentence ; he learns to think in 
the vernacular. 

These numerous ideas belong at the same time to the most 
important that a human being ever acquires. They are the first 
and chief harvest of intellectual activity ; the main trunk of 
the material of thought with which the whole after-life of the 
soul is connected. As they are the result of the intercourse 
of the human being with surrounding nature and the people 
of the neighborhood, so they serve in turn to facilitate and 
advance this intercourse ; they are certain of an uncommonly 
frequent reproduction by reason of then- simplicity and 
distinctness. They form, as it were, the capital in iron, the 
most indispensable minimum of stock in thought, without 
which a human being could not get along in the most limited 
surroundings, in the most restricted circle of experience f let 



154 APPEKCEPTION. 

alone take part in the material and intellectual interests of 
his people. They are further the presupposition of all 
higher intellectual life, the bottom and foundation on which 
all true culture rests. And just because they have proceeded 
from sense perceptions, and mostly represent something 
tangible, mirroring things of the outer world, are they es- 
pecially adapted to be " representative pictures of the distant 
and the past." They bring into vivid consciousness and 
distinctness of perception that which lies beyond our horizon 
in space and time. Just so the pupil, if he succeeds in 
becoming absorbed in the past and in distinctly picturing to 
himself historical persons and conditions, or in travelling in 
fancy in foreign lands, still after all is really wandering on 
his native soil and working with ideas and perceptions that 
he has gained about home. This has already been shown 
above. We have here merely to add that not only in 
geography and history, but in general in all instruction 
which requires illustration of what is distant and past by 
means of description and picturing, recourse must ever be 
had to ideas acquired by the boy outside of school. Out of 
these arise further, little by little, numerous psychical con- 
cepts ; or at least such as have their root in these and re- 
ceive from them their living content. For instance, it is a 
long time before the pupil can think of spring without at the 
same time involuntarily thinking of the green fields, the 
variegated meadows and blooming trees of his native place. 
If he has mentally to measure off an hour's journey or a mile, 
he will surely recur to two familiar points in the neighbor- 
hood of home, perhaps two villages or two hills. In this 
way the child keeps the acquired concepts alive ; for as the 
tree must wither whose cells are not refilled with fresh sap 
every spring, so would also our abstract concepts die away 
and turn to empty shells, if we did not ever anew fill them 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 155 

with material derived from living sense perceptions. In 
this way the perceptions acquired by the child in his youth 
help to master and secure the abstract ideas. This is shown 
by still another consideration. As is well known, all abstract 
ideas are denoted by words that originally applied only to 
concrete things, to activities and relations of the outer world. 
Of course this transference did not take place entirely 
arbitrarily, but words were mostly chosen that referred to a 
similarity or to certain relations between the concrete and 
the abstract idea. One that has the concrete idea in ques- 
tion vividly present, will necessarily unlock the abstract 
ideas more easily and fully. Accordingly, we may further 
assume that also in the case of the child, who brings with 
him so many concrete mental pictures to school, "the ab- 
stract ideas must gain much in meaning through the knowl- 
edge of the relation of the words in which they are expressed 
to the picture-words from which they are derived." 1 So, 
for instance, the idea of the process of plant growth observed 
innumerable times in nature in the most varied stages, could 
not exist in the soul without at the same time throwing a 
bright light on the conception of spiritual and moral growth. 
Or, what lively echo may those lines from the Edda arouse 
in the boy, who has become familiar with wood and field, 
with path and bridge, on his numerous forays into the sur- 
rounding country : — 

" If you've won a friend that you can trust, 
Then visit him not seldom, 
For bushes green and, grass grows high 
On the road that no one treads." 

Experience confirms this view. We see how a striking 
figure, a fitting comparison, often transmits understanding 
of a point to the mind like lightning, and lends to concepts 

i Lazarus, Das Leben der Seele (third edition), II., pp. 195-196. 



156 APPERCEPTION. 

a distinctness that could not be reached without the help of 
concrete ideas. But if, as Lazarus says, clearness in think- 
ing, all the way up into the highest regions of concepts, is 
dependent on the distinctness of the underlying sense- 
perceptions, then it becomes clear from this fact also, how 
incomparably important the concrete ideas acquired in early 
youth are for the intellectual life of man. They are to be 
set down at once as his strongest and his most lasting ideas. 
The child received them in a relatively restricted sphere of 
experience ; again and again the same things presented 
themselves to his perception, and ever deeper did the same 
ideas imprint themselves upon his mind. "With every repeti- 
tion they increased in vividness and strength, and so he 
became little by little entirely familiar with the objects of 
his home and his neighborhood as with dear old friends. 
For, "that which gains a predominating influence on the 
way of thinking in the child, is not likely to be solitary, 
infrequent phenomena and actions, but the general character 
and continuity of similar observations which he has the 
opportunity of making on persons and things." 1 The adult 
has the greatest inclination and love for those fields of ex- 
perience and spheres of activity in which he works with the 
greatest ease and success, in which he feels himself fully at 
home. Just so for the child ; ideas of objects around home 
have a special charm, because they are associated with 
numerous feelings of pleasure and of successful activity. 
Whatever is known and familiar ' ' accommodates itself 
easily to the flow of ideas and their connections," and gives 
the mental activity that certainty and regularity on which 
calmness and joyousness of spirit essentially depend. There- 
fore also, because the child is "at home" among them, 

1 Waitz, Allgemeine Padagogik, third edition, edited by Willmann, 
page 201. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 157 

does he feel so well in the midst of the things about home. 
He recognizes in them his whole world of feeling ; for it 
was already indicated above that the first six years of life 
furnish the foundation for the feelings also. The intimate 
intercourse of the child with father, mother, brothers and 
sisters easily gives rise to the feeling of love and to benevo- 
lence in its preliminary form directed toward particular 
persons only. The social intercourse with playmates and 
others of the same age gives rise to sympathy in sorrow and 
in joy, the feeling of justice and of fairness. The helpless- 
ness and need that make the child run continually to his 
parents, produce the feeling of dependence, of respect and 
reverence for authority. How the power of family life, the 
settled order and quiet habit of home is calculated to implant 
little by little the moral ideas and religious feelings in the 
heart of the child, has been shown in an especially warm and 
convincing manner by Pestalozzi in his book, "How Ger- 
trude teaches her children." According to him the home is 
the soil in which alone virtue and religious feeling can thrive 
and develop. The relation of mother and child is the main 
source of moral and religious ideas. In this connection, 
however, the influence of surrounding nature cannot be left 
unnoticed, as is testified by the confessions of no less gifted 
persons. Let the reader recall that beautiful expression of 
our countryman, B. Golz, on the awakening of child-religion 
through the feelings connected with spring : ' ' When the 
mild days of winter had gradually melted the snow, when 
the sparrow and the goldfinch chirruped on all the hedges 
and roofs in the joyousness of spring, then a mild breeze 
blew around me, and the sun looked out of the purest 
ethereal blue, as full of promise into every window and into 
every human eye, as if it wanted to say to the soul : ' ' Now 
you have conquered, and I am your old sun again, and you 



158 APPERCEPTION. 

are my dear soul as .ver' ; then such a mild winter's day 
became to me a reminder of the old and the new covenant, 
and a child-religion "budded into my childish heart with the 
anticipated feelings of spring, and opened all the leaves of 
the written Bible before my mind's eye, so that I afterwards 
had to recognize in the Christian doctrine and in my con- 
firmation nothing but known teachings and sensations." 1 

These feelings then grew up before any instruction, and 
so they remain also the inseparable companion, of the range 
of thoughts connected with home. Their contents are in- 
dissolubly connected. The things that surrounded a child 
or with which he was engaged, in the moment when joy or 
sorrow stirred his heart, became afterwards the witnesses to 
his deepest emotions. This explains in no small measure 
the peculiar charm of home, pictures and ideas, the strength 
and persistency with which they make themselves felt, often 
unconsciously, through the whole of life ; and also the fresh- 
ness and vivacity which adapt them in preference to all other 
ideas to the apprehension of the new and the strange. For 
it has been already explicitly shown above that the numer- 
ous, concrete, fresh and strong ideas gained in earliest youth 
are the best helps to apperception for all subsequent learning. 

While above, however, we noted the richness and im- 
portance of the sphere of ideas and feelings which our little 
ones bring with them to school, we were still thoroughly con- 
scious of their limits. It could not, therefore, be our object 
to substantiate the opinion of those who believe they can 
presuppose everything possible. Quite in a general way it 
was our wish to give a description of the mental stock that 
the child brings with him to school, a picture that needs 
modification and completion as often as juvenile individu- 
alities occur. For aK pupils do not bring with them an 

1 Buck der Kindheit, page 103. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 159 

equal amount of mental treasure, nor do all bring the same. 
On the contrary, there often appears in the extent and con- 
tent of children's ideas somewhat glaring differences. The 
pupil who has passed the morning of his youth in the circle 
of a happy, honorable, and pious family, who has had the 
sacred love of a true mother and the moral earnestness of a 
strict father to watch over him, will come to school with 
quite other moral and religious feelings and views than the 
poor child of the proletariat, who perhaps does not even 
know his father, or who has been daily witness to the most 
disgusting and ugly family scenes, who has spent the most 
part of his childhood on the street and has never known the 
blessing of quiet, happy domestic life. "Children who 
grow up among crippled factory hands, among consumptive 
weavers and in woodless places, — children who from birth 
have never seen sea or mountain, are all their lives lacking 
in the tones, accords and stories that make up the poetry of 
the world." 1 For, besides the family life, there is also the 
character of the surrounding nature that conditions many a 
peculiarity of the child's thought and feeling. It is not a 
matter of indifference whether we passed our youth in a 
quiet, retired forest- village, or in a dark, damp dwelling in 
the turmoil of the metropolis. It is not the same whether 
we played before the door of a lonely hut on the heath, or 
whether mighty mountain giants looked in at us through the 
window early and late. The son of the mountains, who has 
never gotten out of the exclusiveness of his landscape, will 
find difficulty in forming an idea of a broad plain. He will 
ever be thinking of his valley widened out somewhat, even 
when he himself later uses the word. On the other hand, 
the boys from the Liineburg Heath will remain a long time 
with a very cloudy idea of the Alps, just as our children 

1 Golz, Buck der Kindheit, p. 378. 



160 APPERCEPTION. 

from the Vogtland bring to school no notion of the ocean, or 
a very imperfect one. Different in many respects are the 
thoughts and feelings of the child from the metropolis and 
the child from the village or country town. Very different 
are the notions that they bring with them to the recitation. 
It cannot be denied that the metropolis offers many ideas to 
the pupil, that never fall to the lot of the peasant or small 
townsman in his whole life. They offer a many-sided 
stimulus. But the material of ideas and concepts is too 
immense * for the child to master it ; it is too manifold and 
different in kind, so that the mental pictures too often inter- 
fere with one another. The objects of perception follow one 
another in such rapid change that the youthful mind has not 
enough time in many cases to comprehend them clearly and 
distinctly. The greatest disadvantage is, finally, that the 
child in the metropolis gains too few perceptions of the 
woods and fields, of the mountains, valleys and waters, and 
of the most important and simplest employments of man, — 
i. e., such out-door notions as we became acquainted with 
above, as forming the foundation of our intellectual life. So 
it was found, for instance, in thirty- three people's schools in 
the Vogtland, in the examination of the newly entered six- 
years-old children in June of the year 1878, 2 that of 500 city 



1 See Bartholemai (Jahrbuch des Vereins fur loissens'chaftliche Pcida- 
gogik, V., pp. 290 ff.). Compare also Sachsiche Schulzeitung , 1880, No. 
35: "On the influence of the metropolis on the sphere of ideas of the 
child." 

2 The examination took place at the instance of the author, between 
Easter and Whitsuntide, 1878, in the Burgher Schools in Plauen, and 
in twenty-one village schools of the Vogtland. The number of children 
questioned was over 800. Similar statistics were taken in 1880-1884, by- 
Director Dr. Hartmann in Annaberg. From the interesting statements 
published we take the fact that the girls showed themselves on the aver- 
age richer in ideas than the boys, but that all the Annaberg children were 
in command of relatively few useful ideas on their entrance into school. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 161 

children questioned, 82 per cent had no idea of " Sunrise' 1 
and 77 per cent none of " Sunset" ; 37 per cent had never 
seen a grainfield, 49 per cent had never seen a pond, 
80 per cent a lark, and 82 per cent an oak ; 37 per cent had 
never been in the woods, 29 per cent never on a river bank, 
52 per cent never on a mountain, 50 per cent never in 
church, 57 per cent never in a village, and 81 per cent had 
not yet been in the castle of Plauen ; 72 per cent could not 
tell how bread is made out of grain, and 49 per cent knew 
nothing yet of God. Similar conditions were shown in a 
factory village in the neighborhood of Reichenbach. In that 
place of 1 7 children only two knew any river, and what these 
called a river was a shallow ditch ; only two knew anything 
of God, and one of these thought of the clouds instead. 
Relatively much more favorable results were obtained in the 
examination in the other village schools. Of the 300 ele- 
mentary scholars in these only 8 per cent had never seen a 
grainfield, 14 per cent had never seen a pond, 30 per cent a 
lark, and 43 per cent an oak; only 14 per cent had never 
been in the woods, 18 per cent on the bank of a creek or 
river, 26 per cent on a mountain, 51 per cent in a church 
(many children do not have a church in the place where they 
live) ; only 37 per cent could not tell how bread comes from 
grain, and 34 per cent knew nothing of God. We see from 
this that the child's store of knowledge, though relatively 
rich in external percepts, is subject to a certain one-sidedness 
that makes itself sensible as a want because the child's 

It is noticeable that the boys showed themselves superior to the girls in 
nearly all objects taken from the animal and mineral kingdoms as well as 
ideas relating to human life. On the other hand, the girls were more at 
home in fields requiring observation which were designated by the head- 
ings "Natural Events," " Division of Time," "Landscape," "Religious 
Ideas." — Hartmann, Die Analyse des Kindlichen Gedankenkreises, etc., 
j.385, page 88-94. 



1G2 APPERCEPTION. 

knowledge frequently covers only a few fields. Indeed we 
are not afraid of falling into contradiction with our previous 
exposition, if we further maintain that even those important, 
strong and lasting notions that the child collects in his youth, 
still need in great part supplementing and clearing up. We 
called them strong and lasting ideas on account of the lively 
feelings associated with them and the numerous repetitions 
that they experienced. That does not in any way mean that 
the child every time comprehends the things he meets in all 
their essential characteristics. We have already seen how in 
early youth on account of the abundance of impressions 
pouring in on his senses, the child cannot help apperceiving 
in a one-sided way. It is not surprising, therefore, that he 
not unfrequently gets no more than quite superficial or 
even entirely incorrect notions, and that with reference to 
objects that he has daily opportunity of observing. 

Two things follow from the above consideration : It is cer- 
tain that the child brings to school ivith him in the numerous, ' 
important and strong ideas, feelings and inclinations acquired 
in youth, at the same time the best and most vivid helps to ap- 
perception in the recitation. But the content and extent of 
these are nowhere entirely the same, and in many pupils often 
differ strikingly from one another. 

For these reasons we demanded above that the teacher 
should not begin the instruction of his six-year-old little ones 
at once, as if they were in command of all the helps to ap- 
perception in equal measure, and that he should not pre- 
suppose everything in them. 1 We demanded that he explore 

1 "That painful habit of assuming unknown things to be found in 
children, bars all regular instruction, all orderly education, and implants 
a habit of thoughtless acceptance and thoughtless repetition of words of 
the meaning of which one does not think. This habit is a cancer disease 
in our schools." — Jer. Gotthelf, Leiden und Freuden eines Schulmeisters, 
I., pages 158-159. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 163 

the existing store of thoughts in the children in order that he 
may learn to know the ground on which he is farther to build, 
and the most important omissions in sense-perceptions that 
require filling out. 

For this purpose statistical information is necessary, simi- 
lar to that mentioned above, or like those investigations first 
started, we believe, by the pedagogical association in Berlin 
in the year 1869. x 

Of course, many difficulties stand in the way of taking 
such statistics of our six-year-old little ones at their entrance 
into school. If, for instance, the examination questions 
be directed to the class, then there is danger that many 
scholars will acknowledge views that they in reality do not 
entertain ; many answer in the affirmative only because the 
others do, below whom they desire not to stand. If, there- 
fore, the answers of the children are to serve as a foundation 
for statistical inferences of any kind at all, it is indispensable 
to examine the pupils in small groups (of two to five chil- 
dren). This can easily be arranged for at the intermissions 
or at the close of the recitations. 

But even then when the children are questioned singly or 
in smaller groups, they very often make use of words with 
which they associate either no idea at all or a wrong one. 
It is advisable, therefore, besides the main question, to put 
still other side questions to the scholars in order to convince 
one's self by unconstrained conversation with them, that they 
have not merely repeated what others answered, or that they 
are not deceiving themselves. It is hard to induce some 
children, especially those in the country, to express them- 

1 The association sent out question blanks to all the school principals 
of the capital, with the request that by means of definite questions and 
answers, they should determine the range of ideas of the Berlin children 
on entering the lowest class, in so far as it related to the neighborhood. 



164 APPERCEPTION. 

selves about what they have seen and heard. Their tongue 
can be loosened only by the kind manner of the teacher; 
for this purpose he will very often have to converse with 
them in their own peculiar way of talking in order to free 
them from their bashfulness. 

We are not afraid that (as Nieden claims in Jahrbuch 
des V. f. w. Pddagogik, XIV., p. 87) such investigations 
will determine the existence of only rudimentary and iso- 
lated ideas. For such questions will always be chosen, an 
affirmative answer to which will presuppose a definite group 
or chain of sense-perceptions. If, for instance, the child 
demonstrates beyond doubt that he has already been in the 
woods, on a mountain, or in a church ; that he has seen a 
fish swim in the river or in the pond, then we are well justi- 
fied in inferring the existence not only of isolated rudi- 
mentary ideas, but of entire groups of ideas. Or, on the 
other hand, if a child in Plauen has not yet been in our 
castle or on the bank of the Elster, then it is certain that 
he lacks many (if not all) of the separate ideas belonging 
to the whole idea of "castle " or " river." If, finally, the 
objection be made that the six-year-old child has perceived 
and experienced much more than he can designate in words ; 
that, accordingly, our statistical data will never sufficiently 
cover the child's field of ideas, we answer that all percepts 
that are not fixed by words have as good as no value for 
the recitation; they are too indistinct and fleeting to be 
used there with success. 

But where, in spite of all, such statistical investigations 
must be omitted, it ought to be ascertained, by long con- 
tinued, careful observations, what instruction can presup- 
pose in the child, and what necessary notions the newly 
entered pupils, as a rule, are lacking in. That can be ac- 
complished without a great expenditure of time; there is 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 165 

only need of the regular noting of such experiences as con- 
stantly press themselves one by one upon the teacher in 
every recitation. For instance, each primary teacher should, 
upon the presentation of new matter, — i. e., at the stage of 
analysis, or preparation, — take thorough survey of what 
contributions the experiences of the children can make to 
the new topic. If the results of these inquiries are carefully 
recorded, there will gradually arise "an analysis of the 
contents of children's minds," which will satisfy all reason- 
able demands. For only when this has been done will the 
teacher be fully conscious of a further duty, that of calling 
up defective ideas, and of strengthening, supplementing 
and enriching them, together with others that maybe present, 
thus enlarging, arranging, and deepening the pupil's store of 
experiences. 

In and about the home the child has acquired all the ideas 
he brings to school ; here dwell the objects of his perceptions, 
here are found the beginnings of his notions and feelings. 
It is therefore self-evident that the instruction which is to 
elaborate and supplement this material, should start with 
the same sphere of experiences, or, in other words, deal 
with the surroundings of the child. Because we know that 
the child on entering school has fully mastered only a limited 
part of his surroundings, and that many of his home obser- 
vations need clearing up and sifting, we lead him back into 
the old familiar world, in which he has heretofore lived, and 
which is dear to him. We teach him to know it better and 
to make him more familiar with it — we develop a knowl- 
edge of the home environment (Heimatkunde). 

If we take this word contrary to common usage, in its 
broadest meaning, we of course do not deal here merely 
with a preparatory course for geography, for the home com- 
prises more than the piece of earth where we were born 



166 APPERCEPTION. 

and brought up ; it includes also the products of the soil, 
the plant and animal life, the inhabitants with their occupa- 
tions and customs ; so through careful observations of home 
objects and incidents, our instruction is to secure vivid 
sense-perceptions for more than one realm of knowledge. 

Geography, history and natural science owe to it the most 
important elementary ideas ; and similarly geometry, arith- 
metic, instruction in the mother-tongue and in drawing, relate 
to numerous inner and outer experiences of the child as they 
come to him in his intercourse with things and people at 
home. It does not aim to familiarize the child with all the 
knowledge that a thorough and detailed description of the 
home might afford, for how could he assimilate all this 
material so vast, so difficult of apprehension? 

Not the entire home even to its smallest, most insigni- 
ficant nooks would it present to the pupil, but only so many 
objects of the same as he may need in order to understand 
the instruction. It will consequently bring into the field of 
his observation the most important and most necessary 
objects of the environment. It will content itself with the 
production of observations most needed for the lesson : with 
typical perceptions which he uses most frequently as aids to 
apperception, and the objects of which are capable of 
awakening a strong, direct interest in the child. Accord- 
ingly Pestalozzi's ' ' hole in the wall-paper " is just as much 
to be excluded from this home-knowledge as those empty, 
extremely prosaic things chosen from considerations of thor- 
oughness for purposes of object teaching, such as boot- 
jacks, horse-shoes, slippers, night- tapers, coal-shovels, pitch- 
forks, and all similar objects smuggled in through the 
' ' normal words " of the reading and writing method, and in 
themselves unlikely to elicit the interest of the pupil. 

We remind the reader of the following favorite objects 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 167 

mentioned in most of our primers : ax, book, wheel, paper- 
bag, saw, club, cane, etc. 

This home-observation lesson, futhermore, should deal 
only with such things as belong to the personal expe- 
riences of the child, which he can really observe with his 
own eyes and ears ; whatever things lie beyond the horizon 
of home — if ever so interesting — as for instance strange 
animals and plants, as long as they cannot be observed at 
home or explained through visible home-objects, are abso- 
lutely to be excluded. Likewise we should guard against a 
general discussion about the seasons, the garden, the mea- 
dows, water, etc. Prefatory reflections such as the follow- 
ing are often assigned to observation lessons : " descrip- 
tion of spring, summer, autumn and winter in general," 
" general review of the garden and garden Work," " descrip- 
tion of the meadows and fields in general," ' ' the forest in gen- 
eral." — Such general observations as do not emanate from 
a fullness of concrete single perceptions, stand on the same 
footing with those abstract and fruitless exercises in think- 
ing and speaking with which formerly our youth were 
tormented. Consequently instead of taking a course that 
has to do neither with home nor with observation lessons 
and would improve the pupil in nothing, we should rather 
always start from a definite forest, mountain, pond, or river 
of the neighborhood, and always return to it, if thereby we can 
lift obscure and unsettled ideas into clearness. For not the 
general, but only the particular, the special, the individual, 
can be an object of this home-observation lesson. 

From the school-room and the school-house, to which our 
little ones first pay attention, we lead them into the school 
garden, with whose kitchen plants, flowering shrubs and fruit 
trees they become familiar, whose inhabitants (bugs, bees, 
ants, snails, birds), they can watch in their life and work. 



168 APPERCEPTION. 

In field and meadow there is offered no less rich and inter- 
esting material for observation : the manifold labors of the 
farmer and the herder, and the most important products of the 
field in the different stages of their development. Over hill, 
mountain and valley we ramble through the woods, with 
whose trees, fruits and animals, together with their manage- 
ment, we become familiar under the friendly guidance of 
the forester. We go down to the nearest creek, river or 
pond in order to observe the aquatic animals as well as the 
fisher and trapper, who catch them ; we follow the course 
of the water down to the mill, which we inspect minutely, 
and which furnishes an occasion to discuss the question how 
bread is prepared. We observe the native sky with its 
clouds and stars, we learn to take our bearings according to 
the points of the compass and to notice the changes of the 
day and the season ; we observe the phenomena of the 
thunderstorm, count the colors of the rainbow, gaze with 
interest upon the flocks of birds of passage which pass 
through the sky in the spring and autumn. And as in 
the village we have become acquainted with the most 
important occupations of the farmer and the forester, 
the simplest human dwellings, the farmyard with its domestic 
animals, so in the city we visit, as convenient opportunity 
offers, the workshops of the mechanic, who will disclose to 
us the construction of the most necessary utensils and tools, 
the building lot of the mason and carpenter, the factories 
of the most important industries. We follow the principal 
streets, upon which moves the home traffic, and even where 
we find a remarkable building, perhaps an old castle, a 
palace, a church, a city hall, we tarry with special interest. 
This home instruction demands therefore a wandering through 
the home neighborhood in all directions ; it requires of the 
child a continued observation of what is and what transpires 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 169 

in its surroundings. This kind of instruction would com- 
pletely miss its purpose if, instead of the objects them- 
selves, it were perhaps to present merely pictures, such as are 
so popular in the pictorial lessons of our schools ; or if it 
were to start from the lifeless card and try to show the child 
what it can learn only in and out of the home itself ; or if 
it were to attempt to overcome the deficiencies of the child's 
perception through scattered descriptions borrowed from a 
text-book and through the mere word of the teacher. 

It is certainly self-deception to ascribe to language the 
power ' ' to transfer the observations of the speaker to the 
listener (to wit, the child) with the full force of the sense 
impression and to awaken in the listener the feelings of the 
speaker with like vividness." The liveliest representation 
by the teacher is never able to replace or render unnecessary 
the child's personal observations; he himself must see 
and hear, must observe with his senses the things the 
perception of which he is to share. And since in gen- 
eral things do not come to men, or to children either (be- 
cause this in many cases is impossible or impracticable), 
therefore the school has to take the children to the things. 

This is done if from the start there is a school-garden at 
the disposal of the pupils (at least those of the city), con- 
taining the most important plants cultivated at home, and 
the children are required to work in the garden during certain 
hours, and to attend to the beds assigned them and to watch 
the gradual development of the plants ; or if regular excur- 
sions are arranged about the home or to the neighboring vil- 
lage or city. Each of these school excursions should have 
a definite aim and object, a specific purpose ; the excursions 
should occur, not occasionally, " for a change and recreation 
on some of the free afternoons in summer," — with such 
oalliative remedy, such homoeopathic pills, some seek to 



170 APPERCEPTION. 

satisfy the pedagogic conscience and to meet one of 
the most important didactic principles, — but as often as 
it becomes necessary to furnish thorough observations re- 
lating to some definite subject of instruction. We are 
aware that on account of the difficulties connected there- 
with, particularly in over-crowded schools, these excursions 
solely for purposes of instruction do not find general favor, 
and that men have sought to ridicule them as time-wasting 
"bumming," as an "expensive and diverting innovation," 
a "pedantic and sensational expedient." 1 

1 It depends entirely upon how these excursions are arranged. We have 
already shown above, that the object is not to divert the children, but 
rather to instruct them ; to each of them is assigned a definite plan, a defi- 
nite task. We insist upon it, that this task shall be really accomplished 
by the pupils, that they do not observe superficially and inaccurately, but 
give an explicit account of their perceptions at the place of observation. 
There need be no talk therefore about " useless bumming," and just as 
little about pedantry and ennui. On the contrary we know of no other 
lessons in which the pupils listen with greater pleasure and interest to 
the words of the teacher, or are more eagerly given to observation. These 
excursions place them once more into their wonted sphere, and there 
the teacher appears no longer as the strict master, but rather as a father 
who associates with them familiarly. In this way the children and the 
teacher learn to know and to love one another better. 

This is an educational agency, which, at a time when there is so much 
tendency to regard intellectual culture as the chief object of the school, 
deserves to be emphasized all the more strongly. And what about the 
criticism that our excursions take too much time? As if the method 
which carries on home-knowledge within the four school walls, with 
mere empty words, did not waste still more time ! This in truth wastes 
the entire time, for it builds on sand and does not yield clear-headed 
intellects, but shallow, pretentious braggarts. The hours devoted to 
our excursions are not at all lost, but inasmuch as upon the clearness of 
our perceptions depends clearness of thought even in most remote regions 
of abstract ideas, they will bear fruit a hundred fold. Moreover we are 
not of the opinion that these excursions are to be shifted to the leisure 
hours. It is but fair that the teacher be not oppressed with a new bur- 
den by this work, inasmuch as he finds in them additional labor rather 
than recreation. A definite time should therefore be allotted to them in 
the study plan, perhaps the last afternoon lesson, under some circum- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 171 

But the necessity of these excursions for all teaching 
that attempts to base the perceptions of the pupils on home 
impressions is not removed by the use of opprobrious 
terms. Besides, Bartholomai has shown in an excellent 
treatise that school excursions in the manner just indicated 
are really possible and practicable even in large cities. 1 

stances even a whole afternoon, and they should be put on an equality 
with the ordinary work of teaching, even if it were only in order to meet 
any unjustifiable objections of the parents. As for the pretended expen- 
siveness of our excursions, we freely admit to have had something in our 
mind quite different from most of our modern school rambling. We do 
not at all approve the fashionable mania, which unfortunately has to an 
extent also seized the minds of our children, which for a genuine excur- 
sion would require at least the crossing of the state line and a long ride in 
the cars. We hold the conviction, that generally there is too much 
riding and too little walking, that therefore a superficial knowledge and a 
certain depreciation of the home is likely to result. " Distance lends 
enchantment," etc. 

Against such disloyalty towards the home the school must do its share 
of work, and for this reason we have not in mind expensive railroad trips 
and grand journeys, but simple foot-ramblings within the limits of home, 
which, in case the mother provides the little ones with some luncheon at 
home, can easily be arranged at an expense of a few pennies. In most 
cases the trips will, of course, not cause the least outlay. 

1 About excursions with reference to large cities (Jahrbuch d. V.f. w. 
P., pp. 209-49). Our excursions will of course meet with great difficul- 
ties in large cities, in over-crowded schools, and also for the want of 
;?ood sense on the part of some parents. There it is best to divide the 
,school into sections for this purpose, not to mind the talk of the idle 
£rowd, and finally to overcome through the devoted and faithful discharge 
of our duties, the prejudices of parents who do not understand the 
importance and necessity of our efforts. At least one capable teacher, Dr. 
iBartholomai, succeeded in this way even in a city like Berlin in carrying 
out these school-excursions regularly. He, too, found idle starers, who 
cracked jokes at his expense, and he heard it now and then said by the 
Berlin philistines, " that the children's clothes and shoes were being 
ruined uselessly " ; but he maintained his purpose. Now, what was car- 
ried out there under proportionately much less favorable conditions, can, 
I think, also be carried out at every other place. Let us, therefore, 
give a trial to these instructive walks, calculated to strengthen the body 
of the child and to make his home dear to him; do not let us begrudge 



172 APPERCEPTION. 

If, finally, in the upper grades a little journey were added 
annually that would extend the sphere of vision of the pupils 
beyond the nearest surroundings, sufficient opportunity 
would be offered to further the concrete ideas in which our 
pupils are so deficient. 1 

For it is precisely to such indispensable external observa- 
tions, which pupils commonly lack upon entering school 
(every part of the country, every place has some very 
striking and interesting peculiarities), that home knowledge 
has to direct its special attention. Thus, if our children 
have not yet seen the sun rise and know practically nothing 
of the moon and the stars, we let them in morning prome- 
nades and evening walks observe the native sky long enough 
to gain the desired information. If, as in the case of a 
village situated on a wide plateau, they have found no 
opportunity to form ideas about mountain, creek and river, 

our little ones these pleasant excursions, which fill their minds with new 
ideas, and open heart and soul to the fatherly friend, who honestly shares 
with them trouble and hardships! 

!How in relation to this the home may prepare for and assist the 
school is shown by Sigismund's suggestive paper, The Family as a School 
of Nature, only we should guard against one error that may frequently 
be noticed in families and kindergartens. Many parents and educators 
go too far in the effort, praiseworthy in itself, of giving the child as many 
ideas as possible, preparing him for the exercise of his powers of appre- 
ciation in the work of the coming school. They overwhelm and divert 
him with a multitude of pictures, the subjects of which either go far 
beyond his understanding and experience or which can be observed in 
nature with much greater profit. By this his apperceptive attention is 
considerably lessened, because the perception produced by the picture 
leaves much fainter ideas than the observation of the things themselves. 
Instead of such shadow-like observations gained through pictures, that 
forestall the actual, sensuous experience of the child, and produce a 
hollow make-believe intelligence without interest and intent, it is 
preferable to have none. Then at least nothing is spoiled. "For what 
I have not yet learned to know at all, I learn easier than what I have 
previously begun to learn in the wrong way." — Roch, Gymnasialpdda- 
gogik, p. 129. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 173 

we direct our first travels towards these objects. If city 
children bring with them very insufficient ideas of large 
standing waters, then the school-trip aims to reach a 
neighboring lake or large pond ; if factory children, in most 
cases unnecessarily deficient in observations of field and 
forest, come to school, then the latter should first (and oftener 
than the city) be considered as an objective point of the ex- 
cursions. — But not merely the lacking observations, but 
also the numerous observations which the child brings to 
school, have to be considered in the lessons on home knowl- 
edge. For many of their observations are positively wrong, 
many of them so superficial and imperfect that they urgently 
need to be repeated, strengthened, corrected and supple- 
mented. It is needful to fix the attention of the child, so 
likely to touch only the surface of things, upon definite ob- 
jects of perception, to lead him from his crude ideas of things 
as wholes to ideas of the parts of these things, to make these 
clear in themselves, and in an orderly synthesis enable him 
again to reach a distinct whole ; that is, to form genuine, clear 
sense-perceptions. It is needful, in drawing and coloring, 
in simple pictorial representations of the observed thing 
and in its correct naming, to enhance the clearness of 
the involved ideas. It is needful to put into the varied 
multiplicity of the acquired observations a certain order, 
which of course in no way approaches a scientific arrange- 
ment. The reply to the important question in what succes- 
sion to deal with the objects of observation, will essentially 
depend on the place of home-knowledge in the school, as an 
independent subject of instruction or as an adjunct of some 
other subject. Against the independent lessons as demanded 
by KarlRichter, Juetting and others, and commonly followed 
in the school practice of to-day, there are weighty objec- 
tions. All its ingenious grouping of ideas is inadequate to 



174 APPERCEPTION. 

hide the arbitrariness with which it proceeds in their selec- 
tion. Convincing reasons for the proposed succession of 
.objects are mostly wanting — a sign that here the theory- 
does not rest on a sure scientific basis. The lack of an 
orderly selection of home-material in accordance with uni- 
versally admitted principles weighs, indeed, heavily upon 
the teacher. Consequently the children, too, usually do 
not know why just this or that object is taken up in the 
lessons ; the thread is missing that should unite all the 
various home observations, thus insuring cohesion, per 
manence and interest. Indeed, the teacher is easily misled, 
through the feeling of this want, to anticipate their logical 
connection and arrangement into abstract notions and systems 
and to strive for a completeness in single groups of observa- 
tion, for which the child at the time feels neither the need 
nor the interest. We transgress also against the law of ap- 
perception, in offering subject-matter to the child with 
which he is in part so fully conversant that he finds it 
difficult to interest himself in it independently. To offer 
for observation and in the same form during many succes- 
sive lessons things with which the child is perfectly familiar 
produces languor. The things of the nearest surroundings 
awaken the childish interest only if they are used in rela- 
tion to other subject-matter, and thus viewed in the light of 
another sphere of thought. Finally this independent object- 
teaching heaps up, in the first two or three school years that 
are usually assigned to it, a number of ideas without being 
able to insure their immediate or speedy use. It keeps a 
cargo of observations valuable enough in themselves in store ; 
these undoubtedly obstruct one another and must steadily lose 
in mobility for purposes of apperception, i. e., the power of 
energetically uniting themselves with other ideas. The health 
of the intellectual life suffers if we give several years to the 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 175 

task of gathering ideas tending to apperception and post- 
pone to later years the exercise of their apperceptive ten- 
dencies. This is contrary to the child's wonted practice 
of restlessly working with his limited intellectual capital. 
The saying " In rest, I rust" applies also to ideas stored 
exclusively for future use. Besides it is well to consider 
that great apperceptive mobility exists only in ideas that 
are linked with our personal interests by vivid feelings and 
inclinations. 

It does not suffice that we have seen an object and viewed 
it closely ; we should also in our experience and in intimate 
intercourse thoroughly assimilate whatever is to unfold with- 
in us into strong activity. 

The dear places of home where we liked best to play, the 
animals and the people with which we Held special inter- 
course, the roads upon which we could accompany our 
father through the woods or fields, the grass-plot or the 
woodland meadow where we celebrated our splendid juve- 
nile festivals, — these always present themselves first as the 
strongest and ever present aids to apperception. If, now, 
the practice of independent object- teaching attempts in the 
first two or three school years to accumulate beforehand and 
to lift into clearness nearly all those important ideas which 
in a succeeding stage of instruction are to serve as aids to ap- 
perception, may we then presume that the six to eight-year- 
old child has learned by continued intercourse to know 
familiarly and to love all the various objects to be discussed 
subsequently? Is it really conceivable that the eight-year- 
old child should have closed the round of his home experi- 
ences and now have to meet nothing essentially new ? This 
is denied by the fact that the boy, from the time when 
he can risk and plan independent excursions, starts out all 
the more upon new discoveries ; that his home, the farther 



176 APPERCEPTION. 

he explores it, presents to him ever more new and attrac- 
tive experiences. Moreover, it is impossible, in the first three 
school years, to exhaust the sphere of home observations, 
and much of it at so early a period lies beyond the child's un- 
derstanding, as, for instance, the significance of modern means 
of communication, of industry, and of certain institutions 
of state and church. Here then we have to await the favor- 
able opportunity when, as instruction progresses, the under- 
standing for such things can be rendered easy. If accord- 
ingly the child becomes interested in home objects and is 
attracted by them only very gradually, and no farther than he 
enters into relations of personal interest with them ; if for the 
formation of these intimate relations a few years do not 
suffice, but the whole period of youth is required, do not then 
many of the ideas, awakened by the independent observation 
lessons during the first school-years, seem like empty nuts 
devoid of life and germinating force? Do they not confine 
the child, lesson upon lesson, to natural objects that can 
mean nothing at all to his mind, because he has had no 
experience with them? Do not children in this way collect 
stores that are wanting beforehand in apperceptional mobility ? 
All these evils can be avoided, if, in accord with Ziller's 
plan, the establishment and extension of the sphere of home 
experience is not assigned to a special subject, but to all 
subjects of instruction, especially to history, literature and 
science. By these subjects it must be determined, from time 
to time, what things are to be closely examined. Not system- 
atically and in the tame way common to travelers' guide books 
is the home to be gone through with and described, but ever as 
the needs of instruction may demand it we turn to the home 
environment. Where, for instance, it is desirable to bring 
historic distances within the grasp of the child's mind, or to 
present to his view strange customs and institutions, then 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 177 

we see to it that the pupil may find the needed representative 
images and perceptions through careful observation in and 
about the home. 

For fairy tales and legends, for sacred and profane his- 
tory, for geography and natural science, for arithmetic and 
form study, we seek as occasion requires typical objects and 
conditions for purposes of instruction. In this way the study 
of the home surroundings will from the beginning and in 
every grade receive in regard to its subject-matter definite 
direction from the material and formal subjects of the curric- 
ulum. 

This limitation of the material of home-knowledge re- 
leases the ' ' thoughtful teacher from the sense of oppression 
that always attends the feeling of entire indefiniteness as 
regards teaching matter" i 1 for he knows why he handles just 
this or that subject, and from which point of view it is 
to be regarded for the purpose in hand. While, further, 
the analytic material of home-knowledge enters into closest 
communication with the subject-matter of the synthetically 
progressing branches of instruction, especially with the living 
scenes of history," the objects about home receive a pecu- 
liar illustration, a particular interest. In the light of his- 
tory, of geographical description, or of the contemplation of 
strange, interesting scenes, products and occurrences, home 
appears to the child dearer and more significant as it becomes 
to him more intelligible and familiar. Finally, the fact 
that the material of home-knowledge is not crowded together 
into two years, but distributed over many years among the 
various subjects of instruction, affords still further important 
advantages. The teacher is not so apt to fall into the fatal 
error of assuming that by two or three years of instruction 
in home-knowledge he has in every direction supplied the 

x Rein, Pickel and Scheller, Erstes Schuljahr, 3. Aufl. S. 100. 



178 APPERCEPTION. 

needed aids to apperception and that he may now be released 
from the obligation of attending to close and accurate direct 
observations. On the other hand, the pupil is not misled, 
as a result, to hurry through the home surroundings within 
the narrow school room, but frequent excursions and his own 
observations help him in the course of his entire youth to 
obtain a picture of home, which a forced instruction in two 
short school years would have endeavored in vain to produce. 
Since this instruction does not seek to reap the entire harvest 
at once, but gives the pupil time to enter gradually into close 
relationship with the objects of his neighborhood, it affords 
him from year to year more enlarged views, invested with a 
lively interest and capable of speedy assimilation with re- 
lated ideas. Furthermore, if home experiences are not 
stored for years in advance, but always only at the time and 
in the place where needed in the course of instruction, and 
where they at once can have the strongest effect, then there 
is insured to them the power of apperception, the right con- 
nection with other spheres of thought. In short the analyt- 
ical observation lessons connected with the various subjects 
of instruction of succeeding school years is best able 
to lead to the various provinces of knowledge those fresh 
springs of apperceiving ideas as they arise from the home 
experience of every one. 

However, we do not conceal from ourselves the many 
difficulties that at present beset its establishment in our 
schools. "We shall not place additional stress here on the 
difficulties, presented in the first edition of this work, 
whether and how it is possible to obtain the lacking aids 
to apperception in school excursions at the very time when 
they are needed for purposes of instruction, in factory 
towns where the teacher cannot dispose of the leisure time 
of his pupils as he chooses, in a mountainous district in the 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 179 

winter time, where roads and paths are snowed under and 
many objects of observation are inaccessible, or in cases 
where unforeseen natural occurrences like continual rains 
have set in. For it is a matter of course that in the 
warmer season, when a favorable opportunity presents itself, 
many an observation should be taken in advance and in its 
full details, although it may not find application in the 
studies for several weeks or months ; but such exceptions 
do not change the rule. 

Of more weight, however, is the other fact, that this in- 
cidental home-knowledge is not reconcilable with every 
form of the course of studies. Its successful conduct pre- 
supposes at least for each school year a unified historical 
body of knowledge into which the home-knowledge can 
readily enter; also a patient tarrying with it, not a hasty 
running through with fragmentary patches of material. 
Dry guide-like reviews of universal history or detached 
Bible- stories, selected with a view to presenting subjects in 
concentric circles, do not answer the purpose. So long as 
preference is given to these, so long as a unified course of 
study derived strictly from the object of education does 
not make itself more strongly felt, and widely differing 
opinions concerning the content and sequence of the matter 
selected prevail even among the friends of this method, 
Ziller's proposition cannot gain general adoption. But that 
it implies an important step in advance, that the future 
belongs to it, is our conviction derived from a varied practical 
experience. 

In this we are finally confirmed also by historical consid- 
erations. It is well known that the time lies not so very 
far back when the public school engaged in special ab- 
stract exercises in thinking and speaking, thus wearying 
the children and giving joy to none. This was based on 



180 APPEECEPTION. 

the wholly correct view, that knowledge without under- 
standing can be of no use, that the pupil has intellectually 
appropriated only that of which he can freely dispose 
in speech and writing. To think and to speak are conditions 
and fruits of an educational intellectual culture. The error 
lay in the assumption that these exercises had to be confined 
to special lessons. Thus that was isolated which should 
be the object of every lesson, of each branch of study in its 
special province. The subject of home-knowledge is ap- 
parently in a similar condition. It is generally recognized 
that our thinking even in the highest abstract regions de- 
pends on sense-perception, and that without this firm founda- 
tion the results of instruction are quite doubtful and tran- 
sient. And yet from this it does not follow that one should 
teach by itself, in a special course, what can not be left to a 
particular subject in later instruction. That would be like 
arguing as follows : Since thinking and speaking are among the 
most important activities of the pupil, therefore there should be 
special lessons in thinking and speaking. Possibly, it will 
here too, soon be generally admitted, that separate obser- 
vation exercises unconnected with the principal school studies 
of the public school are just as superfluous as those thinking 
and speaking exercises. Perhaps it will then be conceded 
that to start from the home observations is not the task of 
one but of most branches, and that here a principle is in- 
volved, which must be heeded not only in one or two, but in 
every school year. 

Consequently, then, home-knowledge is not a study corres- 
ponding to a definite department of instruction. But inas- 
much as it treats of material home-observation, it serves as 
an analytic step in nearly all branches of study, and consti- 
tutes through all the school years an essential component 
of them. How much in particular the realistic branches need 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 181 

these continual references to home experience, how only 
through fresh ideas derived from home-impressions, the diffi- 
cult provinces of history and geography, for instance, can 
be mastered, cannot be emphasized too often or too urgently. 
We have already seen, what peculiar demands these branches 
make upon the intellectual activity of the pupil. In geog- 
raphy he is mentally to hasten through thousands of miles 
with lightning speed, and at the enumeration of great num- 
bers of square and linear miles is to form a fair idea of the 
world and to associate sense impression with his words. 
Under the guidance of the teacher he is to travel in strange 
countries and to present to himself a vivid living picture of 
strange cities and men, he is to raise in his imagination the 
snowcapped mountains of the Old and of the New World, and 
to let his vision sweep over boundless expanses of giant 
streams and oceans. He is to feel the oppressive solitude 
of the desert and of the primeval forest as if he were a 
traveller; and stretches of country which it took years to 
explore, he is to survey and describe in a twinkling as 
he would an open book or a level field. But this is only 
possible if the pupil can draw upon the store of his own 
experience ; he can comprehend the words of the teacher 
only in so far as he succeeds in forming similar familiar 
ideas. These constitute the elementary materials out of 
which the extensive edifice of geographical knowledge can 
alone be composed, the foundations and main supports upon 
which this mass of related ideas can rest securely. Where 
those aids to apperception are wanting, and the new finds 
no echo in. the mind of the scholar, he is unable to follow 
the clearest and most vivid discourse, since he only hears 
words, nothing but words. A child that has not yet ob- 
tained an idea of a kilometer, a mile, a hectare, of a 
plateau or a valley, that has not at some time marked out 



182 APPERCEPTION. 

and sketched a plan of his home neighborhood, where he 
can readily find his way, that is wanting in the simplest 
of rudimentary ideas for geographical study, cannot have 
much of an idea of a square mile, of a plateau of ter- 
raced lands, nor show a real understanding of maps, and 
even the most perfect geographical study imparts to him 
nothing but indefinite, shadow-like ideas, and numerous unin- 
telligible names. The same applies to history. If it at- 
tempts to bring before the pupil the civilization of the most 
important nations, if it tells him of the most varied gov- 
ernments and religious systems, or travels with him to the 
historic monuments of his native country and describes to 
him the splendor of the chivalry of the middle ages, the 
important inventions, the great wars of modern times, it 
can hope to create a deep enduring impression on the pupil's 
mind only in so far as its words result in the vivid repro- 
duction of older similar ideas. We demand the impossible 
when we expect from a pupil who has grown up in a se* 
eluded place remote from public life and who, therefore, 
knows little of the most important state regulations, of the 
most prominent church and state authorities, of laws and 
taxes, of stations and ranks, of the manner in which the 
power of government in the modern state is divided, that 
he should transfer himself into the political life of the 
Spartans and Athenians and to understand the legislation 
of a Lycurgus and a Solon. 

We preach to deaf ears when we speak of Olympic games 
or mediaeval tournaments before the pupils have had an op- 
portunity at public festivals at home, to obtain aids to apper- 
ception (however immature) for the new historic material. 
Indeed, even historic material that relates to times and events 
comparatively close at hand, as for instance, the story of the 
origin of the German cities, and German citizenship, of the 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 183 

heroic deeds of our knights, presupposes greater preparation 
in personal observations than is usually demanded : for 
what would be the most brillant and popular discourse to a 
pupil who does not know from his own observation the vari- 
ous vocations of the people, who has never stood before the 
decaying outer wall of an old town, and who has never visited 
and closely inspected the ivy-clad ruins and quaint castles of 
his home ? We are too apt to underrate the demands upon 
the mental capacity of the pupil made by the historical and 
geographical studies ; we presuppose in him a great store of 
experiences, an abundance of sense perceptions and ethical 
observations, of fundamental ideas of time and space, which 
he has either not at all or else not with the desirable clear- 
ness. No wonder that it is just here that the results of the 
studies are not in any way commensurate with the trouble and 
time spent upon them, and that after leaving school the in- 
fluence of the school is dissipated nowhere more speedily than 
in these two provinces of knowledge. Geographical and his- 
torical instruction that does not seek its best help in the home 
observation of the child plays on a piano without strings. 
For only in and about home can be obtained most easily and 
surely those perceptions, external observations and element- 
ary notions, the reproduction of which gives to the words 
of the teacher a living content and to the mere symbol the 
corresponding thing, and which alone secures apperception 
in any study. 

Now as it is impossible to establish all these aids to ap- 
perception in the object-teaching of the first school years, 
much less effectively to store them for future use, we recom- 
mend the extension of instruction in home-knowledge to all 
the school years. In accordance with the opportunities in 
the synthetic progress of the school studies, the teacher 
should see to it that the pupil may obtain upon the founda- 



184 APPERCEPTION. 

tion of numerous observations at home, those indispensable 
geographical ideas of creek, river, tributary, source and 
mouth, island, peninsula and isthmus, plateau and valley, 
watershed, mountain crest and pass, etc. He should exercise 
him diligently in measuring and calculating stretches of road 
and areas. Thus he will form in his local home-experience 
clear and distinct ideas of geographical measurements. 
These measurements should be closely related to the daily 
observations of the child ; the extent of an acre, a mile or a 
square mile, he should at all times be able to relate to a 
neighboring piece of ground or meadow, a certain section 
of the road, the division lines of his home district. He is 
also to become acquainted with the different soils of the 
home district, also with its swampy, sandy and barren tracts, 
so that he may have at hand definite appropriate images for 
the marshes, deserts and plains of geography lessons. 
He should group and compare what he has by degrees 
observed concerning the changes of temperature, the posi- 
tion of the sun during the different seasons, the gains and 
losses of day and night, the apparent changes of the moon, 
and should sketch a map of the celestial bodies with which 
he has become familiar. Finally this study will train the 
pupil, and this is not the least of its task, to draw an outline 
map not only of his residence town, but also of the entire 
home district, as far as it is familiar to him, and so to live 
into an understanding of the map. 

In a similar manner historical instruction should seek to 
gain the most necessary observations and concepts. The 
public buildings or native town or neighboring city, the 
official proclamations of the authorities, the public elections, 
all offer occasion to instruct the child about the most import- 
ant local and state authorities, about the functions and 
duties of the court and civil officers, about the leaders of 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 185 

the churches and schools. In the forest and on the prairie 
can easily be gained a picture of the primeval conditions of 
the native soil — at a time when no man's foot crossed the 
woods ; while on the other hand perhaps legends and 
chronicles of the foundation of the native place afford an 
insight into the conditions under which as a rule the settle- 
ments of our ancestors came about, and to show in what 
manner out of the obscurity of the forest there rose by 
degrees, single farms or entire villages. The giant graves 
and heathen places of sacrifice, to which the children flock 
with their teacher, the numerous legends of river- nymphs 
and water-sprites, of otter-kings, dwarfs and other mountain- 
spirits, the superstitious native customs (Walpurgis-fire, 
Christmas and New- Year superstitions) of which our children 
can give many vivid accounts, are sufficient to transfer them 
into the old heathen time, when our ancestors served Wodan 
or Swantevit, with the same reality with which a lone 
forest chapel, or an old decaying church ruin brings before 
the mind the centuries of a Bonifacius, or an Adalbert of 
Prague. The old castles and palaces of home which we 
visit frequently and inspect closely, give the pupil a clear 
idea of the dwellings and also in part of the occupations of 
the mediaeval nobility, while the extensive lands of the neigh- 
boring manor-house, beside which even now the scattered 
properties of the other villagers almost disappear, afford in- 
ferences as to the social and economical conditions of the 
peasants under the feudal system, and the relation between 
the lord of the castle and his serfs. Impressive and eloquent 
stories are told by the old walls of the native city with its 
loop-holes, battlements and gates, an old tower, a decaying 
monastery of past times ; in vivid directness they lead the 
child back to the times of his mediaeval ancestors. Thus he 
gains in such observations at home a foundation for the de- 



186 APPERCEPTION. 

scriptions of German city life, upon which he finds a ready 
and secure foot-hold for apperception. Finally we render 
the pupil familiar with the origin and significance of certain 
popular festivals of home, search after the traces of great 
wars, which, unfortunately, may be found in almost every 
district of our fatherland, old Swedish trenches, a desert 
from the time of the Thirty Years' War, or Seven Years' War, 
a French cross on the public road, a monument in the centre 
of a field or in the church, a memorial tablet or a " peace- 
oak ' ' of more modern origin : thus there will not be 
wanting material for analytic study relating even to most 
recent history. 

Of course the sources are not alike copious in all parts of 
the country, and local conditions limit the teacher in many 
ways, especially in country schools. But certainly no lo- 
cality is so poor in historic evidences, no home so entirely 
new that it does not offer something for the contemplation 
and inspection of the child, from which the study of history 
may start. 

But while we thus extend the historical and geographical 
sphere of experiences of the children, inducing them to ac- 
count for a number of facts, occurrences and objects of 
home, while we lead them again and again to the field 
of the dearest experiences of their youth, so that they 
may obtain clear apperceiving ideas for their studies, we 
still insist that the observations of home-knowledge should 
not be left off at all, that they should continue to the 
last school year of the pupil. In the home the child's 
powers are deeply rooted, here arise the springs of our 
clearest perceptions and deepest feelings. Therefore, we 
should not merely through two or three short school years 
foster and preserve these springs in the child, but as lone 
as he sits at our feet may the sun at home shine into the nar- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 187 

row schoolroom and make learning a joy and one of the 
most cheering reminiscences of youth. 

Like the home ideas, so too can all other experiences of the 
pupil, all that in other ways has grown strong and vigorous 
within him, serve as apperception aids in the studies. Here 
belong particularly the ideas and thoughts stimulated by 
instruction in previous grades, in so far as the material was 
chosen according to right rules and transformed into mental 
power. To know and to investigate these just as accurately 
as , the spheres of the pupil' s home experience is an indis- 
pensable duty of the teacher. When all instruction from the 
beginning is exclusively in his hands he familiarizes himself 
in the school work itself with the child's whole store of knowl- 
edge. Difficulties arise, however, in institutions ; the work 
of instruction is apportioned among a number of teachers. 
Here it is desirable — also for other pedagogic reasons — 
not to change teachers every year with the advancing grades, 
but to entrust the children to the same teacher as long as 
feasible, and to limit the system of department teaching as 
much as possible in favor of grade teaching. But where 
this is not possible, the teacher should at least be put in a 
position through a course of study carefully laid out in every 
particular, through a conscientiously kept record of the 
results obtained during the course, and also through a 
lively pedagogic intercourse among the various co-laborers, 
to form a clear idea of the store of his pupils' ideas 
assimilated in the previous instruction. He must diligently 
inquire after what they have already learned in a certain 
direction, and how they have learned it, so that he may not 
suppose the unknown to be familiar or serve up the familiar 
as something quite new. Do not chide us for demanding too 
much in this respect from the teacher. If in ordinary life a 
housekeeper should never examine the condition of his house- 



188 APPERCEPTION. 

hold goods, but lay in new stores without regard to those on 
hand, his management could not be of long continuance. 
For like reasons the law menaces with severe penalty the 
merchant who does not make an inventory of his stock. 
Should that which is thus inadmissible in the material world 
be permitted in the spiritual? Certainly still less. And so 
the common demand is made of the teacher not to let any- 
thing essential be lost of the stores already gathered in 
study by the pupil, but to make good use of it as a wel- 
come aid to apperception, and to connect with it, as well 
as with the home sphere of experiences, all that is new. 

When our Saviour desired duly to impress his listeners 
with a religious truth he frequently chose a parable, an 
example, a story, in which quite common, well-known facts 
served to explain a new religious thought. The divine 
thoughts are presented by the Lord in a dress that corres- 
ponds with the country, the customs and usages, the daily 
labors and vocations of his people; he descends into the 
realm of thought and feelings of his countrymen in order to 
transform them from within, and to prepare their minds 
for the reception of his words. The land, the seed, the 
sower, the harvest, lilies and weeds, thorns and thistles, 
the shepherd and the flock, the vineyard and the vine, the 
fisher and the net, the merchant, he who seeks costly pearls, 
the publican — all these men and things of common life, old 
and familiar, become the vessel in which Jesus offers the 
new, his gospel of the kingdom of God. The simplest, 
best known incidents and conditions of life he takes up, 
for the purpose of teaching by them the spiritual truths of 
the heavenly kingdom, as if to entwine them in one another. 
Wholly after the manner his own sayings : — " Every scribe 
which is instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto 
a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 189 

treasure things new and old" (Matt. 13 : 52). " Ye have 
heard that it was said by them of old time ; but I say unto 
you," — so he leads from the ethical views of his time over to 
purer, higher principles. " The heavenly kingdom is like," 
— thus the words fall, time and again, from his lips. 

He holds before the people a mirror of life where each 
can see and learn to judge for himself. Like an artist, he 
presents forms before the mental eye, all of which have a 
deep significance and are symbols of a great truth. Here 
he depicts God as a father who gives a commission to his 
son, or hastens with open arms to the one lost and found 
again, while he reproves the envy of the self-righteous 
brother ; or he is a father who gives good gifts to his chil- 
dren ; who feeds the birds of heaven, and sympathizes with 
his rational creatures. Here, God is a King who is about 
to reckon with his servants ; there, a rich lord who prepares 
a supper ; now, a householder, who confers with the gar- 
dener concerning an unfruitful tree ; then, a proprietor, who 
employs people for his vineyard ; or, a vintner, who fosters 
and prunes his vines. At one time the Kingdom of Heaven 
is a pearl, a treasure in the field ; then a marriage feast, a 
fish-net, a wheat-field. Pardoning love, strict justice, the 
friendly invitation to all, the righteousness and long suffer- 
ing of God, the high worth of the imperishable treasure, the 
necessity of bringing to God a pure heart, the mingling of 
the noble and ignoble in this world, and the last irrevocable 
separation — these are all impressed in the deepest and 
most lasting manner. This is instruction by observation. 
We are told that Socrates taught in like manner. Into the 
midst of the turmoil of the market and the streets, into the 
workshops of the artisans he went, teaching and questioning 
his pupils who thirsted for knowledge (for which reason 
his contemporaries reproached him with speaking always 



190 APPERCEPTION. 

only of smiths, cobblers and tanners). To the simplest and 
most concrete things, to the most personal events experi- 
enced by his young friend, he joined the weightiest philo- 
sophical inquiries. This is a hint as to the way in which we 
can make use of the above stated principles. We can 
secure to the child a rich supply of living apperception 
helps if we not only refer to the home all that is strange 
and remote, but especially make the unknown plain through 
the known, and join all instruction in the strictest manner 
to the personal experiences of the pupil. 

This holds good for all branches of instruction, and for 
even the driest subject. How far, for example, Goethe's 
ballad of the Erlking, that story from the pagan antiquity 
of our people, seems to lie from the comprehension of the 
child ; and yet, apperceiving ideas for this poem can be 
easily awakened. We have only to converse with the child 
about the popular beliefs in river and water spirits to make 
him tell of the old stories, so current with children, of the 
water-maiden who bleaches her washing on the banks of the 
stream, where the merman is who demands his yearly offer- 
ing ; or of the Loreley, ensnaring the boatman by her song ; 
to remind him, further, of certain illusions of the senses, 
which he himself has experienced, when, in the darkness of 
night, he mistook strips of clouds for ghosts, and forest 
trees for dreadful monsters. All then becomes clear. 
However unknown and strange the new idiom, say the 
Latin, appears to the boy, many starting-points even for 
this difficult demand can be found in his personal experience. 
He already possesses the Latin for numerous known names 
and terms without previously having been aware of it : for 
example, Augustus, Sylvester, Felix, Clara, Alma, album, 
sexta, quinta, September, plus, minus, doctor, professor, 
director, etc., which series may be greatly extended. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 191 

These foreign names being carried over into the mother- 
tongue, this analytical Latin leads in the best way into the 
vocabulary and etymology of the foreign language. If then, 
later, he refers other English words, as altar, culture, fever, 
regal, rival, to their original Latin form, he thus conquers, 
as it were, a new world from his home foundation, and the 
entrance into this new world must become much easier. 
We shall not, however, as Ziller wished to do, work out this 
analytical language material independently in advance. 
Would not that be to fall into the mistake of the current 
home-science teaching, which in advance stores up for 
instruction the analytical material of experience, and thus 
" serves the spice by itself instead of with the food" ? It 
seems much better to approach first the known forms of a 
foreign language, as starting and connecting points for 
similar forms. Geographical and historical instruction, as 
already mentioned, will, for explanation and interpretation, 
likewise make use of those ideas and concepts which were 
acquired in the home. By this means the child ascends in 
imagination to the highest Alpine summit, as he multiplies 
the size of his home mountains, placing one on top of the 
other. The ponds known to him he extends to great lakes 
and seas, and, with the concepts of his native winter land- 
scape, he journeys into the icy region of the North Pole. 
With the church tower of his own place he measures the 
pyramids of distant Egypt and the lofty cathedrals of 
Christendom. About three times as high as the tower of 
our principal church are the great Pyramids ; somewhat 
higher still is the Strasburg Cathedral, St. Peter's Church at 
Rome, and the cathedral of Cologne. Or, suppose the 
children are to learn in history of the battle in the narrow 
pass of Thermopylae. Then let us lead our little ones in 
mind to a certain place in the Elster Valley, well known to 



192 APPEKCEPTION. 

them from their school excursions, where the way is suddenly 
closed up, being contracted on one side by high, steep walls 
of rock, on the other by the water, which seems to spread 
out before us to the horizon. And now we say to them : 
Thus must you form an idea of the pass of the warm springs ; 
there behind a wall stood the hero band of Spartans, here 
in the wide plain lay the barbarian army, and from the 
mountain the traitor descended with the enemy into the 
valley. And as we depict the battle of annihilation, and 
those roaring sounds echoed by the walls of rock; as we 
relate the immortal deeds of the Lacedaemonians perhaps 
our pupils may be pleased meanwhile to linger here with 
their thoughts and to transfer to this place the din of 
battle ; we will not disturb them in this if they only follow 
our words understandingly. Or when the child in sacred 
history, stimulated through the practical hint of the teacher 
with reference to his own home circle of observation, paints 
the biblical paradise in thought with the fresh colors of his 
own garden or of one otherwise well known to him ; when 
he transfers the Jordan with its holy place into his known 
river valley ; when he conveys the Bethlehem shepherds on 
Christmas night to the domestic plains, and, involuntarily, 
during the narration of the teacher, glances up to the neigh- 
boring hill as the mountain of the giving of the law, — we 
shall find nothing objectionable in such naive, subjective 
comprehension, but will rather rejoice in it. For the child 
brings then to the new ideas offered by instruction such 
strong, living, helping notions as cannot be awakened more 
strongly and permanently even by the most perfect repre- 
sentation of the biblical places ; he apperceives in reality 
what to another remains perhaps only empty words or 
shadowy ideas. But the other experiences of the child also 
present numerous apperception helps. Suppose, for ex- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 193 

ample, the distance of the Bun from the earth is to be made 
plain to him. The teacher in the spirit of our method asks, 
" If now, up there in the sun one should shoot a cannon 
ball straight at you, what would you do? " " Jump aside," 
will be the answer. ' ' But that is entirely unnecessary : you 
can lie peacefully asleep in your room, and get up again, 
you can be confirmed, learn a business, and become as old 
as I am — then here comes the cannon ball. Now spring 
aside ! Behold, so great is the distance from the sun to 
us." How easy for the exotics among our flowers and trees 
to transport us into remote lands, which are their home ! 
A tree-shaped aloe trained in the windows of many a farmer' s 
room, or a pelargonium, serves beautifully as a starting 
point for soaring over the Mediterranean Sea into the sand 
wastes of Africa and the desert plateaus of the cape. The 
principal divisions of the earth have among us agents and 
consuls in every village common and in every garden. 
South America sent fuchsias, maize, and, above all, pota- 
toes ; Mexico, the dahlia and various cacti. And if the 
child comes to know, further, that in Persia the walnut, the 
peach, the horse-chestnut is at home ; that the cherry and 
the hyacinth grow wild in Asia Minor ; the white lily in the 
Promised Land ; that the grape-vine comes from the Cau- 
casus ; the cucumber and kidney-bean from the hot East 
Indies ; then these foreign lands remain to him no longer 
mere empty names or geographical terms, but he wins from 
them living, fresh-colored pictures. 

When we at last pass over to the province of ethical and 
religious ideas, the assertion is not surprising that right here 
the demand upon the educator is especially difficult. Join 
all instruction as much as possible to the experience of the 
pupil. What the child brings to school with him of real 
knowledge of nature and of linguistic readiness, can be 



194 APPERCEPTION. 

gradually discovered ; but how will the teacher obtain definite 
knowledge of the experiences relating to manners and cus- 
toms, the moral and religious feelings of the pupil? The 
heart of the child is in this respect almost inscrutable. And 
yet, as in every other province, so also in this, an under- 
standing cannot be attained without help of apperceiving 
ideas. Many a biography of noted men attests that the 
words of the teacher, in the hour for religious instruction, 
often went over the heads of the children, since they found 
in themselves no echo to the learned, abstract form; but 
that the inattentive class at once gave attention and were all 
eyes and ears if an anecdote, a story, an example from 
every-day life and childish experience, interrupted like an 
oasis the desert of abstract instruction. The domestic ex- 
periences of the child, his intercourse with parents, brothers 
and sisters, and playmates, his spiritual relation to God, — 
these are the ideas from which the teacher must principally 
derive the starting points, or aids to apperception. There 
occurs, for example, in a Bible story the word " gentle," and 
he finds that all do not yet connect with this word a clear 
idea. Shall he now give a comprehensive definition? No; 
only from his own experience will it become clear to the 
pupil what "gentle" is, as must all else which is to be in 
reality his own spiritual possession. The teacher reminds 
the pupil of a night when he suffered with a bad toothache 
and his mother took him at last on her lap, and, rocking 
and caressing him, comforted him thus : ' ' Now it will be 
better. In the morning it will be all over." This is a 
moment when the child forgets the school, but he never for- 
gets the moment. Or, if the teacher endeavors to awaken 
the idea of sympathy, he will accomplish this in the surest 
manner when he reminds the pupils of experiences of their 
own and brings before their minds vividly those occasions 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 195 

in which they rejoiced with the happy and wept with the 
weeping. The more richly the domestic instruction is imbued 
with such ethical experiences ; the more carefully the rise of 
religious feelings and the observation of manners is promoted ; 
the more deeply the event has stirred the soul, the better is 
the understanding that the child brings to the so-called 
moral instruction. — Indeed not all children enjoy so excel- 
lent an education, and only too often the experiences are 
lacking on which this instruction must base its developing 
activity. What must be done then? In this case it would 
be the worst and most preposterous thing for the teacher to 
attempt to supply the lacking ideas and feelings through 
edifying lectures, well meant admonitions and urgent advice. 
For virtue and religion must first be lived before they can 
be taught and learned. Moral, religious, and aesthetic ideas 
cannot be communicated through language and made intelli- 
gible, unless their personal content, the moral and aesthetic 
feelings, arise in the child himself. As little as one can 
make clear to a blind person by means of words, what a 
perception of a thing by light and color really implies, just 
so little can one show or explain to one who is absolutely 
without the inner stirring of the moral feelings what such a 
feeling is. The power of instruction to awaken moral and 
religious feelings, through the calling forth of ideal forms, 
to develop and strengthen the ethical judgment, rests 
chiefly on this fact. But even here, instruction cannot do 
everything. Who, for example, has never had the feeling 
of repentance, which the cleverest kind of instruction 
scarcely produces, and a desire to recover what has been 
lost? Who has not in the midst of a devout congregation 
felt the nearness of the omnipotent God, or been driven by 
some severe experience to the avowal, "Here God's finger 
is visible ! " — when religious instruction would scarcely 



196 APPERCEPTION. 

have been able to provide the lacking feelings in proper 
strength and depth? The moral feelings then must chiefly 
be lived, that is, must be evolved out of the practical rela- 
tions of the child to life, before instruction can be referred 
to them, or the child "learn virtue." Where these are 
wanting, not instruction, but the surroundings must first 
operate on the mind of the pupil. The example of the 
teacher and of fellow- pupils, the intercourse with them 
during instruction and after it, the entire school-life, should 
show him in living reality those religious feelings and moral 
ideas which were to him hitherto unknown ; the intercourse 
with fellow-pupils in study and play, the praise and punish- 
ment of the teacher, the daily school work and certain cere- 
monious arrangements and holidays place him in positions 
which easily become sources of moral convictions and religious 
feelings. Finally, however, the rigid order of the school 
and home, with their duties and unalterable customs and 
usages, foster and develop those moral and religious germs 
in the ways of conformity to custom. This is what Pesta- 
lozzi meant when he declared, " Virtue and faith must first be, 
and long continue to be a thing of the heart before they 
can become a thing of the reason." The animated feeling 
of every virtue must constantly precede the speaking of this 
virtue. This is the only way in which the experiences 
necessary to the province of ethical and religious interest 
can be obtained by the child and apperceiving ideas be 
provided. 

We think, finally, of still another province of public 
school instruction in which it is especially difficult always to 
provide the requisite aids to apperception ; namely, the 
particular branches of form instruction. Experience teaches 
that the pupil brings originally to the material of instruction 
in those branches only an indirect interest; and forms in- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 197 

terest him only on account of the things to which they belong ; 
his lines of thought in mathematics and language have grown 
together in the strictest manner with the real objects from 
which they arise. For the former owes very much to the 
latter ; intercourse with things not only secures to the ideas 
lasting clearness and distinctness, since it repeats them 
many times, but it leads also in the easiest manner to their 
understanding. It teaches, in the simplest way, their appli- 
cation. Every one possesses the greatest readiness of speech 
in that subject with whose contents he is most familiar. 
For the things which I know from the foundation up, over 
which I have sufficiently grouped my thoughts, the necessary 
forms of speech also stand at my disposal. Therefore the 
old rule : Hold fast the thing, the words will follow of them- 
selves. "Why can excellent and favorable books much more 
surely initiate into the secrets of a good style than a hun- 
dred well established paragraphs from a book on style? 
Because the content and form of speech stand in the closest 
relation to each other, and the former cannot be given with- 
out the latter. In the same manner the subject of space is 
related to that of number. Here, also, is the strength and 
activity of the form ideas of the child, the ease with which 
they enter combinations essentially dependent upon the con- 
crete observations which the child owes to the intercourse with 
things. If, then, it holds good that the child, in the knowl- 
edge of things, possesses valuable apperception ideas for 
the material of form- instruction, the road is set forth in which 
he can in the best manner acquire his established ideas 
through the concrete : instruction in form, at least in the 
public school, should not stand isolated, but should be joined 
to instruction in things. In accordance with this principle, 
we do not proceed, in the instruction in the mother- tongue, 
from language exercises which would be read slightly, and 



198 APPERCEPTION. 

therefore remain misunderstood, or from heterogeneous ex- 
ercises, standing in no real connection with the examples and 
sentences, which can awaken no interest, but from a material 
that has already value and importance for the pupil, from a 
content that has been brought already to his understanding. 
This is the ground and foundation by which the boy, through 
comparison and the placing together of related forms, gradu- 
ally and by his own activity derives from many individual 
language forms the grammatical principles by which, in the 
course of time, he works out for himself his grammar. 
While we give him further occasion to set forth regularly, 
in a simple and clear manner, oral and written, something 
that he has learned in the line of other instruction, we form 
his style in a far surer manner than when we, as too often 
happens, cause him, through selected exercises standing in* 
no relation to the rest of instruction, to write about things 
for which he has no heart or no thought. 

We proceed in arithmetic constantly, not only from denom- 
inate numbers, that is, from number ideas which are joined 
with ideas of things, because they are more intelligible and 
tangible than pure numbers, but even in this branch of instruc- 
tion we remain in the closest relation with things as they are 
presented by the rest of instruction and by life. Meanwhile 
we work out these concrete notions carefully with regard to 
the required number ideas, drill the pupil in readiness of 
calculation, and bring him back constantly upon them, pro- 
vided any obscurity and uncertainty shows itself. Finally, 
in regard to form teaching, concrete things here also form 
the starting-point of instruction. The child learns to recog- 
nize the simplest typical forms of bodies in the prominent ob- 
jects of his environment ; for example, in monuments, build- 
ings, columns, etc. Before there is language of figures in 
the abstract, these forms must be comprehended from things. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 199 

Not before numerous triangles have been pointed out, 
measured, valued, and compared, should any general propo- 
sition of the triangle be given. Instruction must refer 
regularly to things, if the acquired geometrical principles are 
to find their application in practical life. For example, the 
pupil is drilled often in measuring and estimating the surface 
contents of court and garden in the calculation of the solid 
contents of the objects of his surroundings. In this manner 
a stream of apperceiving ideas will be conducted over from 
the province of things to that of form, and will constantly 
fill the abstract ideas of form with living content, making 
them grow together in the most intimate way with other 
lines of thought, protecting them from a shadowy past life 
and from an early oblivion after the school life is over. 

We are at the end of our answer to the question, what can the 
teacher do for the subject of apperception, and how can he pro- 
vide for his instruction sufficient apperceiving ideas in the con- 
sciousness of the pupil ? We found that it was his duty to gain 
a definite view into the pupil's range of thought, especially 
in the extremely important experience that they have 
acquired previous to all instruction, to brighten and deepen 
this and to enlarge it through suitable home instruction. 
We emphasized further that he must, in the most careful 
manner, join all his instruction to the acquired experience of 
the pupils in many ways, especially through advancing in- 
struction, i 

It remains yet to direct our attention to the connection of 
the subject and the object of apperception. Indeed, as this 
lies in the nature of the subject under consideration, we 
have already touched this province many times in the course 
of the inquiry ; but we could only in a very general manner 
mention the ways and means which bring about the con- 
nection. Now, however, it is our purpose to indicate the 



200 APPERCEPTION, 

special, systematic arrangements through which, in every 
particular case, a sure and intimate blending of the two 
factors is brought about, and to establish through the par- 
ticular divisions into which the subject-matter of a branch 
must be analyzed, the steps of instruction that are neces- 
sary, provided a thorough and complete union of these factors 
is to come to pass. 

3. The Proper Union of the Factors of Apperception 
in Learning. 
(T7ie Process of Teaching.) 
It has been already emphasized that the process of apper- 
ception does not by any means properly develop itself in the 
child ; experience teaches rather that even under the most 
favorable circumstances when the child is offered the material 
of instruction for which it alre?dy possesses numerous ap- 
perceiving ideas, the connection of the old with the new not 
infrequently fails to be made. This is the case, either if the 
consciousness of the pupil during instruction is filled with 
foreign thoughts and feelings which do not permit the apper- 
ception helps to arise ; or if the latter lack the requisite 
strength and clearness, the necessary order and completeness, 
and therefore power, to grasp apperceivingly the ideas 
called forth by instruction. Hence it does not suffice that 
the learner possesses apperception aids for the new; they 
must also be at his disposal with the greatest clearness at 
the right time and place. They must, likewise, in the 
moment of learning, stand at the threshold of consciousness 
to present to the new elements all that are related, and so to 
grasp the new knowledge as to prepare for it the right mood 
and the correct understanding. We conclude, therefore,that 
the presentation of the new should not be the first thing in 
instruction, that as a rule a stage of preparation must precede. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 201 

Fine tact forbids one to present, pell-mell, weighty and unex- 
pected communications. The orator regards it as necessary, 
even with an adult audience, to preface his lecture with an 
introduction recalling known facts. Further, before reading a 
new book or scientific article, one calls forth his own experi- 
ences and thoughts concerning the matter, asking himself what 
the author indeed has to say, as the best means for an indepen- 
dent, intelligent connection of the new ideas. Every one 
knows that a merely mechanical memoriter connection of 
what is read can best be prevented by providing such a col- 
lection of his own ideas, even if they should be partly or 
entirely erroneous. Moreover, to important expected events 
that affect our individuality in an especial manner, the cir- 
cumspect man opposes conceptions referring to the nature 
and consequences of such events so that they do not surprise 
him to his hurt. What is thus to the adult a condition for 
the independent reception of new knowledge and important 
experiences, is to the pupil a necessity. In a still higher 
degree than the man, the child requires time to collect and 
expand his apperceiving ideas. "Preparation is every- 
thing," holds good nowhere more than with him. In this 
preparation, however, the problem has to do with searching 
out, in the pupil's own range of experience, the old and 
known which is included in the new material of instruction 
and so working it over that it can enter into an inner con- 
nection with what is similar in the subject. It will be neces- 
nary to obviate in advance certain checkings of a quick flow 
of thought, to utilize all the ideas of the pupil which stand 
in relation to the new, and to explain and throw light upon 
them in order to bring about their reproduction and to raise 
them to a higher degree of clearness. For this purpose we 
must not content ourselves, indeed, with recalling particular 
facts that the child knows, with pointing towards this or 



202 APPERCEPTION". 

that which the instruction has already treated, without going 
deeper into the store of the learner's ideas. Just as little 
must we seek this preparation in a mere repetition of the 
preceding lessons, however necessary for our purpose such 
a repetition prove itself to be. We must rather de- 
vote to the apperceiving ideas a thorough consideration, 
a thorough examination which spares neither trouble nor 
time. We will not only allow the pupil to reproduce 
even the familiar domestic events of his life, which the 
school often thinks it must above all ignore, but we must 
more regularly cause him to express himself in a free, unre- 
strained manner about the subjects of his experience, not 
avoiding even the most peculiar related events, in order that 
a complete absorption in familiar ideas, those strongest aids 
to apperception, shall precede the presentation of the related 
new ideas. The pupil must first become at home again in 
definite old groups of thought ; he must pass through these 
old groups with a certain warmth and ease, before we offer 
him the new ; he must feel firm ground under his feet for 
the new mental operations that instruction exacts from 
him. If the preparatory conversation makes it apparent 
that the existing apperceiving ideas are too weak and un- 
satisfactory, it becomes necessary for the preparation to 
provide what is lacking. Often enough, therefore, we 
must first of all search out and traverse the old ways in 
which the ideas arose, in order that the experiences and ob- 
servations may be repeated, and the ideas improved or 
strengthened. New ways also must often be open to ex- 
perience and observation. School excursions, therefore, at 
this stage are suitable to those efforts, by which false, weak 
or incomplete aids to apperception receive their correction, 
clearness and completeness. From indefinite speaking, from 
a vague roaming around in the field of the child's expert 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 203 

ences, we are prevented and protected in advance by the 
definite aim which, during the preparation, both teacher and 
pupil always have in view. For from the beginning the 
pupil also must know the problem which the recitation hour 
has next to solve ; he must know why we call back this or 
that known fact into his consciousness. Only when he 
knows the purpose of the exercise, do apperceiving ideas 
flow in rich fulness, and especially do those deepest ideas 
arise which the teacher would otherwise never understand 
how to value or to call forth ; only then do the facts brought 
by the discussion receive for the pupil that inner dependence 
and elasticity which is indispensable to the reception of the 
new; only then can that expectation be excited in him 
which hastens on in advance into the province of the new 
material of instruction and prepares for it a quick and certain 
adoption ; only then can he attempt, in the stage of prepara- 
tion, by his own reflection, to seize in whole or part the object 
of instruction. The apperceiving ideas acquired in this and 
similar ways will frequently be collected and arranged. If 
we should pass over the material but once, and in the order 
in which it would occur by chance, many contradictions 
would remain unreconciled, and many principal thoughts not 
seldom be lost in a mass of incidentals. A brief summing 
up, suitable to the content of the ideas, and a separation of the 
essential from the unessential, is therefore absolutely neces- 
sary ; and not less so, a sufficient repetition and impressing 
of that which, as yet, shows itself uncertain and wavering. 
When this is neglected, we stop half way, and apperception, 
in spite of the preparation, cannot be accomplished with the 
requisite ease. 

The demand is also natural and justifiable that the ground 
for the new lesson be prepared in advance ; yet opposed to 
this general truth there are manifold considerations and 



204 APPERCEPTION. 

objections. In the first place, a teacher may think he can 
cause the new to be assimilated even without a special pre- 
paratory step, and so in the presentation of the new matter 
reproduce the experiences of the pupil piecemeal, and intro- 
duce, or possibly seek to create, the requisite apperception 
aids by a subsequent explanation of what is offered. It may 
be also that the treatment of the series of ideas called up 
for apperception will proceed too rapidly and too super- 
ficially, without attaining the intended effect, or, if continued, 
will delay or check the pupil's movement of thought already 
directed toward the comprehension of the new, a state of 
things which little favors apperception. An historical lec- 
ture, which ventured to take nothing for granted and 
laboriously made all the explanations necessary for complete 
understanding, would be most unprofitable, and would leave 
behind about the same painful and tedious impression on 
the pupil that a poem furnished with innumerable marginal 
notes, or a text grown over with learned remarks, makes on 
adult readers. For as often as the lecturer interrupts the 
course of the narrative, to procure the necessary apper- 
ception aids, so often also will the strained expectation of 
the listener be diverted, and the main subject pressing 
rapidly forward will arrest the spiritual assimilation, and a 
lasting impression of violent delay in his current of ideas 
will overcome the pupil. It would be well, then, if the 
apperceiving ideas were provided by means of a thorough 
preparation that would complete and deepen the understand- 
ing of what is presented. Moreover, if the child has a 
previous comprehension, incomplete though it may be, he 
will have a basis in apperceiving ideas such that a gradual 
assimilation of the subject can take place. Where, on the 
other hand, such apperception aids are wanting, the new 
quickly sinks below the threshold of consciousness or is 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 205 

wrongly perceived. And then it is only with great difficulty 
that an explanation can restore the ideas for assimilation, or 
entirely annul the disadvantages accruing from a false, 
incomplete comprehension ; it will always remain a difficult 
and thankless task to make good again that which an 
insufficient apperception has spoiled, and to eradicate mis- 
takes already fixed. Some have disputed the possibility of 
being able to place a limit in advance to each lesson, fearing 
that the logical carrying out of our demand will lead to 
artificial divisions, wholly indifferent to the child. Besides, 
they say, the general truth, the final theme, which seeks, for 
example, to develop a catechism or book of proverbs, could 
not possibly be announced to the child in advance. Cer- 
tainly, the proper determination of the aim is not easily 
made in all subjects, as, for example, in natural science and 
in form instruction, where interesting practical questions in 
the life of nature and men, form the natural starting and 
terminal points of instruction. And it may be admitted that 
many of the tests hitherto published referring to the aim, for 
example, in biblical stories have not been correct. This 
merely signifies, however, that in the selection of the aim of 
the lesson, special care must be taken to avoid certain mis- 
takes and misapprehensions. With this precaution, the 
announcement of a purpose in the whole plan has constantly 
proved itself not only possible, but also useful and neces- 
sary. We have always found that for every lesson-whole, 
a question or exercise or fact of experience could be produced, 
which announces the new in such a way that it no longer 
touches the pupil's ear as completely strange, but calls suffi- 
cient apperception helps into consciousness. But this an- 
nouncement must never be permitted to take the form of a 
general idea or a general opinion ; for it is clear that the 
abstract cannot be given, that it is rather to be gradually 



206 APPERCEPTION. 

developed from a group of similar ideas. Were we to give the 
pupil a principle in advance, as the recognized end to be 
attained, then almost all connecting points for this, and con- 
sequently for every basis of apperceiving activity, would be 
lacking. Therefore it has always been regarded as obvious, 
that only a concrete object is to be presented to the pupil, an 
object lying near to his previous experience and exciting lively 
expectation, an object or aim existing, actually in the 
absorption of new and interesting ideas. But where can 
such interesting ideas be 'found ? Must not much be ac- 
quired for which in itself the child, at the time, feels no 
interest? Certainly, but if the child is indifferent concern- 
ing certain subjects of instruction, because he thinks he 
knows these well enough already, or because he undervalues 
their importance in human knowledge and business, an 
interest can be awakened, and he can, through the method 
of Socrates, by suitable questions be made aware that he 
really knows very little of the things referred to, that the 
cause of certain phenomena remains concealed ; also that he 
has, without reason, held certain things as self-evident and 
uninteresting. For the child, facts must be converted into 
problems. That which in and of itself excites no interest 
must be used as a means of serving an interesting purpose. 
If the child, for example, is not especially interested in the 
consideration of dry forms of speech, who can blame him? 
And yet interest in such forms can immediately be acquired 
if we put them into connection with practical needs. This 
is shown in reading, and in the oral and written expression 
of thought. The child will use grammatical forms with 
eagerness, not for their own sake, but for the sake of being 
able to read well and with understanding, and for the sake 
of being able to express his ideas properly and exactly. 
By such methods, in subjects apparently the driest, an inter- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 207 

est can be secured that will lend to the apperceiving ideas 
the proper strength and vividness. Some have pointed out 
that in the work of preparation there is a temptation to dwell 
too long upon various incidental things, and that the teacher 
of little skill enters into these at length, coming tardily to 
the real matter in hand. The inference has been drawn 
from this that with beginners and unskilled teachers it is 
better to omit the preparation altogether. In fact, a prepar- 
ation which is merely mechanical or which introduces too 
many details, conceals those defects and with them the 
danger of putting fatal weariness in place of childlike inter- 
est. It escapes this danger, however, when the aim is so 
clearly, personally and concretely seized that a rambling 
into the indefinite is impossible ; when we call up to the 
mind of the pupil only so much of the known as the under- 
standing of the new absolutely demands ; when we do not 
rely on the accidental, but above all seek to place the pupil 
in the right situation and disposition. Limitation here also 
marks the master. But is the beginner, because he is not 
yet a master, never to try his skill in self-limitation, even if 
exposed here and there to the danger of making mistakes ? 

Have not different pupils different ranges of thought, so 
that one reproduces apperceptive notions where another ob- 
tains none? And is not attention different in spite of the 
good intent of the pupil ? Can it therefore be asserted with cer- 
tainty that the new material of instruction has been sufficiently 
prepared ? And if not, what advantage has the new method 
over old ones? We may reply that the discerning, con- 
scientious teacher, to whom every soul intrusted to him 
is a care, by means of solicitous observation of the individual 
pupils, during instruction and during recreation, by means 
of familiar intercourse with them on the play-ground or on 
excursions, by means of heartiest sympathy in the events of 



208 APPERCEPTION. 

peculiar interest to them, would certainly be able to under- 
stand a large part of the child's world of thought, and know 
how to individualize a great deal in his instruction. He 
would be able to lay hold in the most practical way upon the 
child's most active thoughts and inclinations. Moreover in 
the events of the preceding lessons and in school excursions 
there is produced a very rich and valuable treasure of apper- 
ceptive ideas, increasing with every hour, which are common 
to all the pupils, because they are acquired by common labor. 
And even supposing that varied apperceptive helps in acquir- 
ing the new knowledge by different pupils of the same class 
are offered, what difference does it make ? If only the mental 
appropriation is most thoroughly accomplished by the pupil 
in his own way it matters not by what means it is done. 
But whatever is especially calculated to fix the ideas, to 
assimilate with knowledge already possessed, to bring what 
already exists in the mind into harmony with the new material 
before the mind, to awaken apperceptive notions, will be 
ratified a thousand fold by experience. Whenever the 
lesson starts with something interesting that attracts the 
attention of the pupils from the outset, the necessary ap- 
perceptive helps will seldom be lacking, far more seldom at 
least than when the unknown is brought forward unex- 
pectedly and without aids 1 to apperception. The prepara- 
tory discussion will experience an essential limitation and 
abridgement in such cases where the work upon the immedi- 
ately preceding lesson has aroused in the pupil, inquiry, 
expectation, reflection and doubt which are to find their 
solution, explanation and fulfillment in the new material 

x No one will assert that the preparatory discussion will reach its pur- 
pose with all the children of a class. But if there be but little that is not 
understood, and that by only a few, it must be accepted and applied as 
an important aid in method. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 209 

offered. In such cases there is already found in the fore- 
ground of the child's consciousness a related range of thought, 
and therefore sufficient helps to apperception are easily 
brought forward by means of proper questions. The pre- 
ceding applies especially to the advanced classes. The 
more advanced the pupil, the shorter the preparatory analyt- 
ical discussion by the teacher, the more it -may be left to 
the pupil to find the right means of acquiring the new for 
himself. It is the purpose of every methodically prepared 
lesson gradually to raise the pupil to such mental indepen- 
dence, and finally make the "analysis" by the teacher 
superfluous. 

The Herbart School, especially Ziller, has emphasized, 
with no uncertain sound, the necessity of a preparatory 
step (the so-called "analysis") for the lesson, and they 
have given it a psychological basis. We meet indeed oc- 
casional pedagogues outside of this school who make similar 
requirements in teaching the lesson. Wangemann, for ex- 
ample (Handreichung beim ersten Unterriclit der Kleinen 
in der Gotteserkenntniss) , begins every biblical story with a 
"preparation," of which he gives the following as advan- 
tages gained : " It must enable the child upon hearing the 
biblical story the first time to comprehend at least the im- 
portant matters perfectly. It will prevent the engendering 
and fixing of all sorts of preposterous and remarkable ideas 
in the mind which comes from listening to incomprehensible 
expressions. The preparation must do decidedly more than 
seek to awaken a right frame of mind. It must seek out 
the conditions and relations of life, relations that the story 
under consideration introduces, and endeavor to bring them 
into the world in which the child lives, hold them up to his 
view, call particular attention to them, and elucidate them, in 
order to prepare the understanding for what the story reveals 
later." 



210 APPERCEPTION. 

Curtmann recommends a like procedure in his treatment of 
the Reading Book (Lehrbuch der Erziehung und des Unter- 
richts), in which he would have every selection that is not 
easily understood preceded by an explanatory introduction. 
He says, "Before the child begins to read, it must know 
what it is going to read about. The pupil must read with 
attention and with interest which the teacher has excited be- 
fore the reading begins. The difficulties also, which would 
interfere with the interest, must be removed beforehand. 
Everything most necessary to a good understanding of the 
subject should be explained at the outset, and not at the 
end when the best impressions are effaced. The teacher 
must connect every new reading lesson with the sense per- 
ceptions already obtained or with what has already been 
read, and thereby make it comprehensible." 

It has been repeatedly attempted, especially recently, to 
reform and improve the old-fashioned common practice ac- 
cording to these ideas. But there are nevertheless but com- 
paratively few persons who place themselves definitely and 
logically in favor of preparing the pupils for each new lesson, 
and even they with their criticisms challenge the manner of 
carrying out such preparation. It seems most extraordinary 
that there shall be a procedure in instruction, that owes 
its warrant to general psychological laws and that studies 
the need of each pupil narrowed to a single branch, or 
to a definite part of a branch (e. g. a piece of poetry), 
that it is considered necessary to prepare the pupil for ap- 
perceptive notions in biblical history or in a reading lesson, 
while in other subjects of instruction such preparation may 
be omitted. We are liable to forget that the appercep- 
tive process remains the same everywhere, and in no field of 
knowledge can anything new be appropriated unless there are 
found in the mind of the child well grounded, related thoughts. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 211 

In most cases the preparatory discussion should not make 
reference to the ultimate purpose of the lesson ; this will be 
indicated either at the end of the preparation or not at all, 
because it is better to lead the child unconsciously to the end 
sought, and to prepare it for a kind of surprise. By men- 
tioning the end sought beforehand, the will of the learner 
will be but little helped, and the development of the most 
interesting experiences of the child will be lost. This seems 
to be beyond dispute. Many believe that they are prepar- 
ing for the presentation of the new while they are giving the 
new itself in the preparatory discussion. They seek, for 
example, to make the ma3tery of an epic poem easy by a 
simple description, while they present the thought of the 
^oem beforehand. They precede the presentation of a 
biblical story according to the wording of the biblical text 
by most childish " preparatory narration," which is supposed 
to remove the difficulties of Luther's translation. Or they 
bring forward in the preparatory elucidation certain concepts, 
facts and examples which are suggested in the material of 
instruction, when it is doubtful whether they come at all 
within the limits of the individual experiences of the child. 
They usher in the new by means of "introductions," which 
perhaps in certain objective respects are proper, but from a 
pedagogical standpoint must be regarded as entirely impracti- 
cable and mistaken. For their content is not formed by old , 
familiar ideas of the pupil, which only need to be excited in 
order to return clear and living into consciousness, but new, 
unknown ones, with which the mind must struggle if it 
masters them. 

But it does not need to be mentioned that ideas which 
need the help of apperception themselves in order to become 
fixed, ideas which, because of momentary restraint, fall into 
lasting obscurity, are not suited to work out a strong, apper- 



212 APPERCEPTION. 

ceptive power. It is not learned introductions and eloquent 
recitals of new, unknown experiences that smooth the way 
to the comprehension of the new easily and surely, but the 
help must spring from the soul of the pupil, from his strong- 
est and most vivid range of ideas, if an assimilation is ever 
to be reached. Therefore, from first to last, that form of 
preparation in which the teacher alone takes part, which 
subjects the pupil to discourses by the teacher and which 
the pupil must silently follow, must be declared inadmissible. 
For it is not the teacher but the learner that must do the 
principal work ; to the former belongs the duty of bringing 
forward the most important apperceptive helps. But a 
simple examining and questioning, that merely bring out a 
part of the treasures of the child's knowledge, hindering his 
thought activity, will by no means answer our purpose. 

The apperceptive ideas of the pupil are brought out the 
best and easiest if he is led by means of questions to express 
his own knowledge freely and unhindered. This he will do 
in a connected way if the preparatory discussion takes the 
form of a familiar conversation. Then the dullest mind has 
time to act, and even the retiring disposition is encouraged 
by the confidential tone of conversation. No one should be 
omitted in the relation of his experience, and each, according 
to the measure of his knowledge, will add something to the 
new thought-structure. Every one rejoices that his own 
knowledge, which has heretofore been smuggled in as for- 
bidden ware as compared with the word of the teacher, is 
recognized and respected, and each looks forward to every 
new lesson with redoubled interest. This condition of mind 
is the most favorable that the new material can meet ; the ap- 
perceptive process is introduced in the very best way possible. 

The instruction must now pass to the second step, the 
presentation of the new material. This consists in either 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 213 

relating a story (to small children) , reading a selection or his- 
torical topic (to riper pupils) , or in showing and carefully 
observing a natural object, a geometrical body, an exercise 
in arithmetic for the solution of a problem, a geographical 
subject exhibited upon the board or sought upon a map and 
described, an incident in natural science brought up and in- 
vestigated. It is important so to adapt and apply the object 
to be apperceived that all of its parts which linger on the 
threshold of consciousness may easily and surely unite with 
the ideas the child already possesses. It is clear that even 
well prepared matter cannot be thoroughly mastered if the 
ideas are forced too rapidly upon the consciousness of the 
learner, or if they are too weakly and obscurely presented. 
The pupil will not become master of the material if he is 
overwhelmed with too much at once, if the teacher fails to 
linger upon difficult points with necessary stress, if the mate- 
rial is not presented in proper order and with proper clear- 
ness, and if the attention is not held. The more time 
given to the individual members or parts of the object to be 
studied in order that it may unfold clearly and intelligently 
in the consciousness of the children, the more opportunity the 
pupil has to appropriate the presented notions that are to 
be apperceived, the better will they be apperceived and the 
better learned. It follows therefore that the amount of ma- 
terial given must be measured by the capacity of the pupil, so 
that neither too much nor too little may be asked of him; 
such material must be properly connected in order that he 
shall not receive it as a mass, but rather that it may be fixed 
in his mind according to the law of successive clearness, 
from section to section, from item to item. Thus are made the 
necessary pauses which give opportunity for a review of the 
ground covered and which allow a moment of reflection to fol- 
low regularly a state of deep absorption in the subject. Let 



214 APPERCEPTION. 

short, topical statements and key-words be placed on the 
blackboard, which indicate the particular points on which at- 
tention must be fixed, and which assist in retaining the idea. 
Finally, the separate parts, each of which has been made 
prominent for the sake of clearness, must be united and 
combined into a unity in consciousness. 

' ' The change from absorption to reflection must take place 
exactly as inhalation follows exhalation in physical life ; it 
is the process of mental respiration." Nowhere has our 
claim a greater justification than in the beginning of a science, 
or in elementary instruction. It is everywhere recognized, 
and indeed it has become a proverb, that in every depart- 
ment of human knowledge, the beginning is the most difficult. 
It is true that there are but few ideas in the child' s mind with 
which the new material can readily assimilate ; therefore it 
needs plenty of time for the fusion of the two groups of 
ideas to take place, and because of this the assimilation of 
the new and unknown is at first so uncertain and doubtful. 
If one should hasten from absorption to absorption, or 
should at the stage where the child learns most slowly, in 
order to gain time, make too rapid progress, or perhaps, be- 
cause the subject is interesting, seek to give the greatest 
amount of material at one time, an important factor would 
be lacking in the process of mental respiration. The princi- 
pal pillars of the structure of thought now forming would be 
undermined and only superficial knowledge would be the 
result. 

Next to the proper arrangement of every subject to be 
taught, there is still another means most appropriate to assist 
in a thorough fusion of the new with the present store of ideas ; 
let the pupil as often as possible strive to arrive at the wished- 
for knowledge in his own, self -chosen way. Let him attempt 
to solve the arithmetical exercise or the problem in natural 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 215 

science, or to explain an extraordinary phenomenon in his own 
way ; let him reflect upon the voiceless symbols of the geo- 
graphical map ; let him by means of careful observation and 
independent description appropriate to himself that which 
the teacher's instruction would otherwise give him. Let 
him observe for himself without outside help, how the con- 
nection of historical facts, the causes and effects of certain 
events, the motives and characters of the chief persons in- 
volved are to be understood. The main purpose should be 
separated into subordinate purposes, thereby making it 
possible for the pupil to find out and conclude a great deal 
for himself, which otherwise must be told or shown him. 1 

Of course he will not always choose the best and directest 
way, but certainly it will be the easiest way for him, that 
is, the one in which he finds the greatest number of 
apperceptive helps. His course of thought will need in 
many points to be extended and corrected ; but it has the 
advantage that nothing unknown to him has been brought 
in, nothing that he does not possess, and it takes root in his 
store of ideas, and can easily be examined by him from 
every point of view. Even if the pupil is able to appro- 
priate the new matter only imperfectly, his work is not to be 
considered as wholly lost. "He has at least obtained a 
glance at the material by means of this preliminary attempt 
at free presentation, which, when he has a more correct 
method, acts as a help to the memory." Many doubts are 
resolved, many hindrances removed, and so many related 
ideas are awakened, that the new facts find already in the 



1 " Neither discoveries nor inventions are made in the school ; neither 
are discoveries or inventions brought to maturity there, but the pupils 
should be so trained as to discover what has already been discovered, 
to investigate what has been investigated, to seek for what has been 
found.' ' — Lazarus. 



216 APPERCEPTION. 

mind plenty of material with which to connect. But the 
teacher must guard against unnecessarily narrowing the 
thought- activities of the pupil, and should briug him for- 
ward by means of " suggestive questions " (Scheinfragen) 
which indeed may be rich in content, and treat of the most 
important and essential things, but which the child should 
find out for himself. The teacher will seek to lead him 
preferably by questions which give sufficient play to his re- 
flection, as for example : What must now take place ? What 
is the next step ? What is still lacking ? ' ' Material help will 
be given only when the suggestive questions do not suffice ; but 
when used they must be so comprehensible, definite and 
forceful that the transition takes place without anticipating 
those things that the pupil can grasp of himself, and they 
must be helps to the pupil just where he is helpless." 

But while we exercise so much care that the pupil shall 
reach the end sought by self-chosen means, if we bow before 
superficial adaptation, whereby the new material is simply 
committed to memory without comprehending, we retard 
(not necessarily make more difficult) the process of apper- 
ception for the purpose of gaining time and adding the great- 
est possible number of new notions at the expense of per- 
fect mastery and complete assimilation on the part of the 
pupil. For we possess nothing surer and more lasting, 
nothing that is able to incite the volition, like that which we 
have found out for ourselves by our own powers, and have 
worked out alone. 1 

1 We must criticise the following assertion by Palmer: " It is amis- 
taken idea that the child receives more good or is surer of a thing if he 
has found out the truth for himself, than if it has been given him in a 
thorough manner by the teacher." On the contrary, Schiller says {liber 
die notwendigen Grenzen beim Gebrauch schdner Formen): "There is no 
way for the results of thinking to reach the will and the inner life of the 
child except through self-activity. Nothing but that which has already 
become a living deed within us, can become such in the outer world." 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 217 

We have indicated above that one of the objects of prep- 
aration is to excite expectation in the pupil, which will be a 
help in leading him to the mastery of the lesson for himself. 
The new lesson will not always meet such expectations ; 
it will in many points undoubtedly be antagonistic to 
the apperceptive notions of the child. It would be easy in 
such cases to confirm a fickle and therefore wrong appercep- 
tion. When the parts of the new material that contradict 
one another are made too little prominent, and those ele- 
ments that are related and resemble each other are brought 
forward too rapidly in effecting a union, the antithesis will 
be eclipsed and will not find a place in consciousness. Then 
the learner overlooks the peculiar characteristics of the les- 
son, and his conception is subjective and false, or at least 
incomplete. This danger is sometimes all the greater, 
the more thorough the preparatory discussion has been, the 
more one attempts to come down to the familiar, individual 
range of thought belonging to the pupil, and to find ideas 
already in the mind with which the new ones will harmonize. 
But this danger may be avoided if in the presentation of the 
lesson the antitheses are brought out sharply and definitely, 
if the teacher lingers longer and with particular emphasis 
upon them, and if the pupil's attention is especially called 
to them. It is proper also to delay the combination of the 
elements of the related ideas until the antithetical ones have 
fully come into consciousness and have become an insepar- 
able part of the assimilation ; it is also important to delay 
the progress of apperception in a measure, in order that 
it may be the more thorough and objective. Accordingly, 
the historical story, for example, will produce the deeper and 
more correct comprehension of historical persons and events, 
the better the present is transposed into past times and past 
civilizations, and the better the story pictures to the mind of 



218 APPERCEPTION. 

the child the prominent peculiarities of an historical people or 
race, as they asserted themselves to the world in language, 
literature, customs, and manner of living. The study of 
historical authors is recommended to maturer youth for the 
same reason; for no manual of instruction can show the 
antithesis between our modern culture and that of the past 
like the work of an old chronicler, who faithfully pictures the 
events and deeds, the views of life, the thoughts, the 
feelings, the customs, and the language of his time. 

Greatest care must be exercised in natural science in- 
struction, in the investigation and experiments concerning 
those phenomena which in every-day life are surrounded by 
false and baseless notions, — take, for example, the precepts 
that our peasants follow, the fairy tales of our nurses concern- 
ing certain animals, etc. The child, of course, brings these 
notions with him when he enters school. The same caution 
is needed in religious instruction with reference to super- 
stitious notions, customs and practices, which are handed 
down from generation to generation. 

The presentation of the new material closes with a recap- 
itulation and review of the whole by the pupil. He should 
now show by a systematic reproduction of the lesson pre- 
sented that he has fully understood the subject. "The 
best test that a person has understood a thing is, that 
he can reproduce it in his own way, with his own 
words" (Herder). So, then, if the separate parts of the 
new are more closely united by many repetitions, the entirety 
will be the more strongly impressed upon the mind. To 
every lesson which offers something new, belongs the mis- 
sion of making a definite, well-defined series of ideas the 
inalienable property of the child. But the formation of such 
a fixed series of ideas would be furthered but little if the 
repetition and combination or the material learned snould 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 219 

proceed in the form of repeated questioning and analyz- 
ing of such material, i. e., if the pupil is not required 
to give the whole matter at once, but is allowed to give 
it piecemeal. Then, under the most favorable circumstan- 
ces, " the parts in his hand, he may hold and class, but the 
spiritual link is, alas, lost." Then apperception would, to 
all outward appearance, never reach perfection. We always 
require, therefore, a complete, free narration, an independent, 
connected presentation of what is learned. We allow the 
pupil to speak freely and without hindrance, without inter- 
rupting his course of thought by questions or suggestions. 
As a rule, we do not interfere even when he mixes in error 
or forgets important things ; but after the conclusion, of his 
presentation, we ask the whole class to rectify errors, supply 
deficiencies and correct an incomplete rendering. Further, 
we must avoid forcing the pupils to comprehend or grasp 
the whole by means of prepared forms of expression that are 
not clear to them. For example, we do not require the con- 
tent of a biblical story to be given strictly in the words of 
the sacred writer, if the child does not choose those forms of 
expression of his own accord. For by reason of the inti- 
mate connection between word and thought, between condi- 
tion of mind and language, which do not correspond to his 
individual thought relations, he would have to give up a 
large part of his apperceptions, and accept expressions 
which are nothing more than empty words to him. It 
is far more important that the child should express him- 
self in his own words, in the common, familiar language 
of the people, of course free from dialect, rather than in 
unfamiliar book-language ; the former is far more closely 
related to his apperceptions. We even permit certain pecu- 
liarities of childish expression, if they are not ungrammatical, 
and in the case of serious mistakes allow only a brief, explicit 



220 APPERCEPTION. 

correction to be made. For a smooth, connected presentation 
of the child's own thought has, in our eyes, an incomparably 
greater value than a discourse interrupted and corrected a 
hundred times by the teacher, in which there is no longer 
anything original or characteristic of the child, but a few 
pretty forms of speech that the child has committed to 
memory and which do not require him to think. 

But when can one say that such a spontaneous and proper 
recitation of the subject taught has fulfilled its purpose? 
Certainly not until it is thoroughly understood and has taken 
full possession of the heart and being of the child. There- 
fore it behooves us to guard earnestly against premature 
reviews. It would be, for example, a grave error if one 
should attempt to fix the content of a description, the bare 
facts of a biblical story, before they are fully understood. 
Apperception reaches its best fulfilment when suggestive 
material is considered, not suddenly, but gradually, and it 
needs plenty of time for this purpose. Skillful questions 
and hints by the teacher must lead the child to correct wrong 
perceptions, to clear up dark places, and in general, to im- 
press the meaning, and the moral and religious truths of the 
topic. And then, for the first time, when apperception is 
thoroughly completed, will the child be able to speak, not 
from memory, but out of the depths of his soul; then the 
words will flow from the lips easily and warmly out of the 
abundance of the heart. But when the text is being im- 
pressed, before it is fully ingrafted into the thoughts and 
feelings of the little ones, and before it is understood in 
every part, many will be able to give neither a free nor a 
connected statement of what has been heard. In the former 
case there would be empty repetitions from memory and only 
partial perception, not apperception attained ; in a word, it 
would be mechanical learning. If the child has become 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 221 

accustomed to rely upon the words of the teacher or of the 
book, he no longer feels the need of searching out the deeper 
meaning of the subject, and of drawing a picture of it for 
himself by means of full and lively contemplation. 

If the principal work, the statement or reproduction of the 
story, is in the opinion of the children already accomplished, 
the succeeding elucidation will find indifferent hearers and 
unresponsive hearts. 

With the oral and written representation of the thing 
learned, the process of assimilation, as it appears, is finished, 
and we could consequently close our investigation concern- 
ing special, methodical arrangements for the purpose of 
cordial union of the subject and object of apperception. 
But instruction generally carries the treatment of the new 
material still a step further ; the material appropriation of 
the lesson does not suffice. The instruction seeks, where it 
is possible, to place the pupil in possession of things that 
are universally accepted and necessary, of general laws and 
truths that are contained in the material treated. The 
pupil should on the basis of the individual notions already 
obtained, and of his concrete experiences, be able to rise to 
a comprehension of the ideas as they are systematically 
arranged in text-books. Then these ideas and laws lend to 
the mind of the pupil the first true solidity and assurance ; 
they complete for the first time the appropriation of the un- 
known. They are at the same time the organs of apper- 
ception, with the aid of which new experiences can be 
quickly comprehended and rightly judged. It has to do 
therefore with the introduction of a process of abstraction, 
and since this, as we have already seen, presents only a 
peculiar kind of mental acquisition, so the process of apper- 
ception is followed by a second process of the same char- 
acter, which the results of the preceding knowledge appro- 



222 APPERCEPTION. 

priated, changed as it were into choicer, finer products, and 
which distinguish the primary ideas from the secondary. We 
have already repeatedly considered these apperceptive pro- 
cesses, and may therefore be able to grasp the separate 
methodical steps that are necessary for their introduction 
and elaboration. First of all it is necessary to separate the 
individual notions and facts, from which general truths are 
evolved, from all other material, and to connect them with 
similar perceptions. These can be derived from knowledge 
already obtained by instruction, as well as from the other 
experiences of the pupil. Results also which are added 
through one's own reflection are not excluded. But in every 
case only such things as are clearly related and are fully 
known should be put together. Everything possible must 
not be brought in because of a remote similarity ; but only 
such material as awakens closely connected thoughts in the 
minds of the children. When the related ideas are united 
and have been carefully compared with one another, a mutual 
cessation of the unessential, opposing characteristics will 
surely take place ; they become obscure and disappear for 
that reason before those parts of the structure that are 
common to all ideas, and reach a high degree of clearness 
and strength by means of manifold repetition. Whatever 
within the circle of knowledge is brought systematically and 
with special plainness into consciousness and firmly fixed 
in proper order, constitutes the essential, necessary char- 
acteristics of an idea or the content of a general law or a 
universal judgment. So we reach the universal by the 
way of combination, of association. 

The concepts obtained from concrete objects and with 
which they are still more or less connected, will be distin- 
guished and fixed in a further step, that of systematizing or 
combining. The oral expression for the result of the new 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 223 

apperception will become fixed, and it " will be brought into 
properly arranged, systematic connection with the known 
material, and that which has been learned will be thoroughly 
impressed upon the mind." In this way the pupil gradually 
gains by his own effort the individual, properly arranged 
principles that the text-books present. A long chain of 
reasoning, an ingeniously arranged, logical development is 
not needed in either this or the preceding step. For it is to 
be feared that the pupil who is led unconsciously through a 
long, logical course of reasoning to a certain result, will lose 
his desire to examine the reasons on which it is based, and 
also the connection between the concept and the fundamental 
notion in which the concept takes its root. 

Or suppose the pupil is really able independently to 
repeat the ingenious, logical sequences that we find in many 
(not in all) categories. So long as he is not able to do that, 
he is not master of the subject. Still, perhaps, the logical 
evidence of the concept or principle, which has been devel- 
oped, is sufficient in itself so that the pupil is able to dispense 
with the review of the path in which the knowledge was 
obtained. Unfortunately universal concepts and judgments 
are not like ripe fruits, which must be picked from the trees 
on which they grow in order to preserve and utilize. They 
are mental products, which cannot be conceived aside from 
the ideas out of which they sprang, which exist only in and 
with them, which, in reality, are not separated but only 
differentiated from them. 

A concept, a general truth, is our real possession only 
when we are vividly conscious of the concrete facts from 
which it has been derived, or other similar facts. When a 
logical characteristic or the exact words of a general judg- 
ment have escaped us, we should be able to call it back into 
consciousness by means of the concrete facts. And only so 



224 APPEKCEPTION. 

far as we are able to do this has the universal any logical 
evidence for us. 1 The words of Scripture, " The prayer of 
the righteous availeth much," is nothing but an empty form 
without evidence or force to him who recalls no individual 
case of prayer either by himself or others. 

If now the teacher omits requiring the pupil to survey the 
path by which he acquires concepts, and carefully to 
examine the connection between these and his fundamental 
notions, the evidence of the developed principle or concept 
is certainly not thoroughly fixed in the mind of the pupil. 
But in order to avoid this danger, and to enable the pupil to 
produce at will the general results of his intellectual work, 
by methods well understood by him and in which he has 
confidence, or at least to maintain the concrete foundations 
of such knowledge in the mind, the development of the 
universal must not be attempted by means of a long, cleverly 
compounded course of reasoning. It may be reached by 
simple means, yet without too little thinking. The more 
thoroughly the pupil has appropriated the preliminary con- 
crete culture-material, and the more related notions are 
associated with the newly gained knowledge, the easier the 
process of abstraction is incited by a few questions. When 
the pupil hesitates, it is better, in ninety-nine cases out 

i The direct evidence of our thinking always has its source in 
immediate sense-perception. Therefore the translation of the word 
" Evidence " as the " quality of being visible " (Anschaulichkeit) is not 
far out of the way. — Wundt, Logik, p. 75. 

Instead of leading the child's mind far beyond the immediate 
objective world into the world of abstract ideas, and holding it there as 
long and closely as possible, teaching must rather get away from 
abstractions as soon as possible and return to concrete phenomena- 
Otherwise the longer and more exclusively the children wander about 
among concepts, the more certainly does experience prove that this very 
cramming process leads them away from individual, independent think- 
ing, instead of assisting them in it. — Pfisterer, Pddagog. Psychologie, 
p. 245. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 225 

of a hundred, instead of a series of questions or a line of 
reasoning, to go back to his fundamental ideas from which 
the concept should be evolved. This in all probability needs 
supplementing and correcting, or, perhaps, fortifying and 
explaining. 

The process of abstraction ends with the establishing 
and arranging of knowledge into a system, and its inculca- 
tion (with reference to the form as well). It may now 
be asked whether with this the methodical treatment 
of the material of instruction has reached its purpose, 
whether the appropriation of the universal and the abstract 
is so fully attained, that all that remains, namely the appli- 
cation and practical utilization of the acquired concepts, 
laws, and so forth, may not be left to the pupil. Experience 
gathered from all sides has proved, that among the very 
teachers who are most zealous in leading their pupils to a 
thorough understanding of the objects employed in teaching, 
not a few are inclined to answer this question affirmatively ,. 
They believe that when a principle is made clear, its use is 
assured ; they believe that with the introduction of the sub- 
ject-matter into the understanding everything is completed, 
and apperception is accomplished in the best manner. This 
is a wide-spread error of our " enlightened" age, under the 
consequences of which our school practice greatly suffers. 
One goes from one extreme to the other : while formerly a 
hard and soulless method of teaching laid the chief stress 
upon cramming the material into the children without stop- 
ping to ask whether it was understood, in our time the 
tendency is seriously to neglect the drilling and the appli- 
cation of the lesson. And the teacher who does his duty 
in this matter, is in danger of the reproach, " mechanical 
training," "spirit-killing grinding," "tiresome reiteration," 
and such like forceful pedagogical expressions. On the other 



226 APPERCEPTION. 

hand there is the ever returning complaint that our youth 
have learned indeed much, yet know but little; that they 
possess a great deal of knowledge, but limited, readiness in 
its use, and that a large part of the knowledge they get is 
forgotten as soon as they are out of school. 1 

The application of universal concepts to the concrete 
seldom comes of itself; it must be taught, shown, and 
practiced in every branch of study. " That you understand 
a thing thoroughly is not enough ; it must be at your tongue's 
end, — then you use it authoritatively." 

When the reviewing and applying are omitted, when the 
range of thought is constructed without being united in 
every possible way with the other groups of ideas, the 
power of influencing thoughts subordinate to it is lost, 
no matter how clear the range of thought may be in itself. 
Then it forms as it were an upper house of ideas suffi- 
cient in itself, without recognizing the lower house, or 
taking into account any other ideas. It thus becomes 
clear that an application of the systematic combination 
of the matter learned must follow. The object of this step 
is not to go over the work repeatedly and in every conceiv- 
able way in order that it may be easily brought into use at 
will, but to bring the material into closest relation and 
liveliest assimilation with the pupil's present range of thought. 
It must enable the pupil by many practical examples to 
discover the universal in the concrete material of all branches 
of knowledge, to comprehend it from every standpoint, and 
thus easily pass onward from the concrete to the abstract. 
It must cause him as often as possible to enter new fields of 

1 Perhaps the worst thing an evil genius has presented this age is 
"Knowledge without ability to use it." — Pestalozzi, Wie Gertrud etc., 
XII. — The well-known expression, "Knowledge is power," is only half 
true. A much better rendering would be: "Ability to do (Konnen) is 
power." 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 227 

thought through concepts and rules already in his possession. 
It must lay before him numerous, judicious problems for 
solution, and require in oral and written presentations free 
application of the knowledge gained. A reverse practice 
of proceeding from the universal to the individual is also 
recommended. What we demand here has already been 
practiced in a certain sense for a long time in one branch, 
namely, in arithmetic. In this it never occurs to any to 
leave the application of a rule to the child ; and whoever 
should attempt it would soon be enlightened by the complete 
failure that would result. One may well wonder that like 
experiences in most other branches have not called forth 
equal discernment, and the same procedure as in arithmetic. 
For it is beyond question that, e. g., in moral instruction, 
quite as little as in arithmetic may general principles be used 
with the pupil, without assuring their use by causing their 
absorption through numerous examples, and by introduction 
into such relations of life as call out the moral judgment of 
the pupil. 

It is conceded that all universal, historical truths, all 
geometrical theorems and physical laws, can only be inalien- 
ably appropriated when the instruction leads them into closest 
connection with living questions and exigencies, and offers 
examples from the practical life and experience of the child 
for solution. Every subject taught, therefore, should have 
an exercise and drill book, as in arithmetic ; or at least the 
application of the material learned must be assured by means 
of such repetitions as are made in teaching mathematics. 
For constant, manifold use of the material taught not 
only intensifies the clearness of it, but it also assimilates 
it with numerous ranges of thought, so that a fluent reproduc- 
tion is assured. It brings forward the plain, comprehensible 
characteristics which the pupil again and again recognizes in 



228 APPERCEPTION. 

concrete things. It makes so many concrete fields subject 
to the universal that the latter is supported as with countless 
pillars, and is retained in consciousness by a rich treasure 
of strong sense-perceptions. In a word, it gives to apper- 
ception its first real foundation. In this manner it is pro- 
vided that the newly learned facts shall not remain as dead 
material in the midst of acquired notions, but shall develop 
an assured activity and impulsive power. Knowledge now 
becomes power, and power becomes volition. 

When the pupil does not put away his school thoughts 
with his school implements, but likes to make use of what he 
has learned in school outside of it : when, for example, he 
borrows the characters of history and imitates them in work 
and play ; when he carries out practically what he has learned 
in natural history ; when he voluntarily seeks to extend and 
fix what he has learned, by observation and by diligent re- 
search ; then a proper mental activity has been attained, 
then we see knowledge that is in the very best way to be 
transposed into volition. That is what Goethe meant when 
he said, " The secret of teaching consists in reducing pro- 
blems to postulates." 

There are, therefore, five methodical steps which must be 
taken in the treatment of a lesson. The preparation (analy- 
sis), the presentation (synthesis), the combination (associa- 
tion) , the recapitulation (system) , and the application. 
They indicate the method by which a complete apperception 
of the culture-material is accomplished ; first, careful obser- 
vation (steps one and two) , then proper combination (steps 
three and four), and, lastly, practical realization of the 
result of the lesson (fifth step). The teacher must follow 
this course, as a rule, although freedom is allowed him in 
special cases. 

Such freedom is allowable, for example, when tiiere is not 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 229 

sufficient time in a lesson to present all the material as a 
unit. Then, only so much of the analytical material should 
be introduced in the preparation as is necessary for the 
particular new material brought forward in this recitation. 
In this case the analysis will not appear in its completeness, 
but will be given in parts as is needed for the separate topics, 
preparatory to synthesis. We could proceed in like manner 
when the great variety of material to be analyzed threatens 
to disturb the unity of the analysis. 

If, furthermore, the acquired culture-material is so rich in 
generally accepted truths that it gives rise to more than one 
concept or one rule, a single concept must be brought to full 
apperception before another is introduced. In this way the 
steps, association, system, and application, will be employed 
several times, at least as often as is necessary to evolve the 
universal and generally accepted. 1 

This requirement presupposes indeed a definite, pedagogi- 
cally correct choice in the subject-matter of instruction. 
For, without question, encyclopaedic presentations, or dis- 
connected topics in history, do not, as a rule, admit of a 
complete combination and a thorough treatment of the lesson 
according to the formal steps. To one who holds inflexibly 
to certain lines in choice of material, the application of the 
formal steps will easily become merely a routine. The correct 
result can only be attained when care is exercised to present 
to the pupil an entire and complete view of the whole sub- 
ject. The formal steps bring forward important, valuable, and 
connected material, which should be separated into a series 
of " methodical units." Under these units is included not 

i For an extended treatment of these topics, see McMurry's " General 
Method," Public School Publishing Company, Bloomington, Illinois, or 
DeGarmo's " Essentials of Method," D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. See 
also Rein's " Outlines of Pedagogics," C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y. 



230 APPERCEPTION. 

merely a part, or a topic of some subject, but a concrete 
whole, a group of valuable (internal or external) percep- 
tions, which contain an important concept or a universal 
truth. Nor does it suffice to group favorite subjects and 
separate them into topics, but attention must be paid to the 
articulation of the material, considered as to its culture con- 
tent, and how it presents itself in general and in all applicable 
cases. The requirement as to the treatment of the material 
according to the formal steps applies, as we have seen, only 
for subjects in which a new concrete culture-material can be 
intelligently assimilated and its elements brought forward 
towards abstraction. 

Hence it follows that there are two essential limitations in 
applying our general principle. In the first place, there is 
no doubt that the subjects of general review and examination, 
the objects studied — school journeys, in so far as the obser- 
vations made are classified, likewise those subjects which 
require technical skill in their acquirement, do not require so 
close an application of the formal steps. For here it does 
not concern the knowledge already gained, or the acquiring 
of new truths, but the review of ideas, or of bodily activity. 

A second case is possible when a lesson offers, indeed, 
new, concrete material, but composed only of known, well 
comprehended elements. A piece in reading, an historical 
narration, a natural history or geography theme often brings 
simply a new sense-perception to an already acquired concept, 
a confirmation of knowledge already possessed. In this case 
it would manifestly be forcing the culture-material, if one 
should insist upon the use of all the five formal steps, and 
should associate, systematize and apply where there is noth- 
ing new to abstract. It is then sufficient to allow the pupils 
to recognize what is valid in the concrete, but for the rest to 
conclude the methodical treatment, with a thoughtful com- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 231 

bination of the new material. Or the new material may first 
be explained, and then, when one or more related topics or 
branches are brought in and appropriated, in the same 
manner related third, fourth and fifth steps may follow the 
several syntheses. 

When, finally, material for teaching is offered that is rich 
in concepts rather than sense-perceptions, i. e., in abstract 
form suitable for teaching, the question of methodical unity 
cannot enter; for the latter always arises from concrete 
material. A text of scripture, an article of the catechism, 
a sacred hymn, cannot be treated according to the formal 
steps. They will, in most cases, need to be united to 
one of the units of historical or religious instruction, which 
prepares for a correct understanding of them. When the 
child has grasped the real content on the basis of a rich 
material obtained by sense-perception, when he succeeds in 
fixing the content by means of the steps of the system, these 
steps give the knowledge obtained a classical form, or they 
serve him as an authoritative confirmation. But how is it 
when they arise only after instruction in biblical history? 
Many parts of the Bible must necessarily be subjects for 
special lessons after the common-school course (with us 
Sunday-school) is ended ; take, for example, many important 
chapters from the Epistles. 

The pupil should be able, when he enters upon the practical 
duties of life, by diligent and intelligent reading of the 
scriptures, to extend his knowledge and find strength and 
comfort in the hour of sorrow and temptation. Systematic 
instruction in the catechism will have an important place in 
the course -of study. But what enters here as abstract con- 
tent of instruction should not be developed by the method of 
observation and abstraction according to the formal steps, 
but it should be presented to the pupil directly ; he should 



232 APPERCEPTION. 

be able to help himself under direction of the teacher, aided 
by a rich treasure of religious views and experiences, and 
he will learn to understand and grasp the truth for himself. 
By this means he will show that the persons and deeds of 
sacred history have life and power in his soul. And so he 
applies in a single step of method what he has learned 
in religious conviction and insight in all the preceding years. 

To sum up : when the teaching presents no new, concrete 
culture -material for conscious appropriation, or when this 
material contains no new general elements, the formal 
steps cannot be followed. 

As in the case of culture-material, so the general accept- 
ance of the formal steps experiences a limitation with 
respect to the ability of different children to acquire. 

We have seen that the complete assimilation of matter 
to be learned involves a double process of apperception; 
that it ends in a process of abstraction, a process of con- 
densation of what has been newly learned in general 
notions and general truths. The formal steps are together 
intended to secure the carrying out of this process to com- 
pletion. But the pupil in the lower grades of the public 
school is but little disposed or prepared to perform the act 
of logical abstraction. His strength and interest are still so 
taken up with the reception of new ideas, the number of his 
definite perceptions of the various classes represented in the 
different spheres of experience is still so insufficient, that to 
demand of him the formation of general notions — even 
though it be but in the form of psychological ideas * — 

1 The author refers here to the distinction between " logical " and 
" psychological " ideas, the former being ideas representing the essential 
character of the several particulars involved, while " pyschological " ideas 
are unscientific generalizations, in which the process of abstraction has 
not been completed, leaving therefore in the abstraction still many un- 
essential qualities. — Trans. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 233 

would be for the most part to demand in vain a very unfa- 
miliar labor. Generalization must not be premature ; it must 
always come out as ripe fruit from a fullness of similar concrete 
experiences. It is not to be developed artificially, if it is 
not to remain an empty word, a plant without roots. It 
should not appear until the richness of the material of in- 
struction and the very variety of what is learned compel 
the combination and arrangement of the essential elements in 
a generalization. The pupil in the lower grades must 
accordingly be spared the effort of abstraction. The pro- 
cess of apperception will always be brought to an end with 
the first division, that is, with providing for the thorough 
observation and understanding of the new matter for its own 
sake. The essential and significant elements of it are to be 
specially emphasized, even if only as a particular observa- 
tion, and the pupils are gently to be led to join that which 
is learned with similar concepts, forming groups or series 
according to the measure of the pupil's experience. Finally, 
the teacher should seek by varied exercises to insure the great- 
est possible readiness in gaining these desired results of in- 
struction. In this way there is secured a gradual preparation 
for later abstraction in the same field, for the comprehension 
of the ideal and universally valid principles involved in the 
material of instruction ; thus the pupil learns by and by to 
proceed from the first less complete apperception to that 
which is more thorough and perfect. 

Such is also the case in certain instances even with the 
more mature scholar. For even he is not always able to 
draw out at once the treasure of ideal and universally valid 
principles presented in the concrete material of instruction. 
When he first begins to work his way into a new field of 
knowledge^ where fundamental principles, the beginnings of a 
new study, are involved — as in the case of a new language 



234 APPEECEPTION. 

— the pupil will be able only with difficulty to proceed to 
the logical comprehension of the subject. He has, as yet, at 
his command too few definite and similar facts to be able to 
determine, by a process of abstraction, the logical content of 
all subject-matter of instruction. Here, likewise, the teacher 
will be obliged — for the beginning, at least — to give up 
the complete carrying out of the process of apperception. 
In that case the elaboration of the material of instruction 
ends with the acquisition of series and groups of ideas, 
as, for example, of the traits of an historical person, a series 
of dates, a group of grammatical forms, the description of a 
country, the drawing of mountains and river valleys — and 
it must be reserved to a later consideration to unite these 
results with others into a higher form of knowledge. 

It might be urged against us that in this way the culture- 
content of the material for instruction is but imperfectly 
appropriated, in so far as the pupil does not rise to an ideal 
comprehension of that content. But while the necessary ma- 
turity and experience required for such comprehension are 
undoubtedly lacking to the scholar in the lower grade, while 
he still prefers to think in sense-perceptions, and the mere 
reception and uniting of the elements of a new sphere of 
knowledge demand the full mental power of the more mature 
scholar, we must, — whether willingly or not — take this 
fact into account, and not for the sake of a stiff formula 
introduce system and application where there is nothing, as 
yet, to abstract. 

Besides, it is quite possible, while traversing only a part 
of the two processes of apperception, to secure the appro- 
priation by the pupil of the important elements of the 
material of instruction according to his power of apprehen- 
sion at the time. When, for example, we direct the mind 
of the child from concrete facts of Sacred History to an 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 235 

intimation of the goodness and wisdom of God, when the 
pupil is led clearly to comprehend and fix in mind the ethical 
traits which command our approbation in the historical 
person, when in the consideration of a subject in geography 
or natural history, we bring out certain typical properties 
into sharp relief, or in language lessons place related forms 
side by side, in all these cases we make the scholar distinctly 
conscious of the essential, significant, and universally valid 
elements of the material of instruction, even if only in the 
form of an observation. When now the instruction in each 
department produces more and more such valuable typical 
observations and joins them together in groups and series, 
when finally these become so numerous as to lead to their 
union in a general notion or a general truth, then, at length, 
all those concrete departments of experience which belong to 
the generalization, without being traversed in a process of 
abstraction, acquire for the pupil increased clearness and 
significance, through their relation to that generalization. 
So the thorough assimilation of former materials of instruc- 
tion is accomplished by retroactive apperception, and the 
culture- value which they hold is secured to the pupil in a 
natural way — without over-haste or premature generalizing. 
A second elaboration of the same material of instruction, as 
demanded by the theory of concentric circles, 1 is then 
unnecessary. 

But some objector may ask : If abstraction is banished 

1 The theory of concentric circles or concentric instruction is to be 
clearly distinguished from the Herbartian doctrine of concentration. 
According to the concentric circles, the pupil is made to study the same 
historical period repeatedly in successive years, going each time more 
deeply into the subject and mastering more details. The Herbartians 
devote successive years to successive historical periods, and in each year 
of the course concentrate the instruction in other lines — geography, 
natural history, language, etc., around the historical material as the heart 
of the whole course. — Trans. 



236 APPERCEPTION. 

from a part of instruction, what remains of the ' ' principle " 
of the formal steps ? If instruction covers, strictly speaking, 
only the first three steps, does it not give up for the most 
part the determination and application of generalizations in 
the steps of system and method? Certainly, and it is pre- 
cisely this that constitutes the second limitation, to which 
the universality of the formal steps is subject. 

To be sure, the formation and impression of groups and 
series of ideas might be regarded a step of system, and 
going over the same in a different order (as takes place for 
instance in the application of orthographical series in compo- 
sitions or dictations on examination) as a step of method, 
since there certainly exists a certain resemblance between 
these mental activities and the regular carrying out of the 
process of abstraction. And so Ziller and likewise Rein are 
accustomed throughout to describe as ' ' system ' ' a series of 
numbers, the drawing of the mountains of a country or the 
map of a battlefield, the arrangement of the matter treated 
in history, a series of dates, and the like, 1 which are to be 
treated in a more advanced grade as expressing general 
notions. But an historical table, a drawing, a graphic 
presentation of the historical matter, a geographical descrip- 
tion, are neither expressions of general notions nor anything 
universally valid and necessary. They are acquired as some- 
thing very individual, not by way of abstraction. But Ziller 
makes it an essential characteristic of the elaboration of a 
methodical unit according to the formal steps that the general 
notions and universally valid elements involved in material of 
instruction be appropriated by the scholar through a process of 
abstraction. It follows that, whenever one must be limited 
to the acquisition of series and groups of ideas, the steps 

1 Ziller, Materialmen, etc., pp. 113, 125, 137. Rein, Pickel und Scheller, 
5. Schuljahr, second edition, pp. 59, 64. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 237 

of system and method in the strict sense are out of the 
question ; the complete carrying out of the formal steps is 
then impossible, provided the original notion of those steps 
is otherwise to be maintained. It answers fully to the 
psychological facts if, at the age when general notions are 
not to be abstracted, but only a preparation for them to be 
made, the elaboration of the matter of instruction be brought 
to a close with the many-sided union of its principal elements. 
Certain general characteristics, typical concepts, belong to 
the elements so brought into union. This course indicates, 
by the description of the methodic activity involved, that a per- 
fect abstracting appropriation is not yet possible or intended. 

Such a course is to be recommended moreover on one other 
ground. The complete carrying out of the formal steps from 
the lowest to the highest class is justified only when the notion 
of system is changed according to the need, that is, when we 
understand by the word at one time general notions and what 
is universally valid, at another only dispositions and material 
for the making of general notions. But in this way the 
theory appears vacillating and indefinite. The beginner 
adheres to Ziller's exposition of the theory according to which 
a process of abstraction is always to be introduced, and 
accordingly applies abstraction even to the material of the 
first school-year. How much painful artificiality, how much 
unchildlike reflection and precocious thinking, how many 
worthless combinations of concepts can be brought to pass 
in this manner, is not far to seek, and is unfortunately fully 
attested by experience. But such misunderstandings may be 
avoided if the idea of system be taken in only one, and that 
the strict original meaning of the term, if it be borne in mind 
that, according to Herbart, " the earlier instruction cannot 
give us system in the higher sense." 1 

1 Pddag. Schri/ten, I., 406. 



238 APPERCEPTION. 

We have seen that in many cases either the material of 
instruction or the limited mental grasp of the scholar at the 
time does not admit of a deeper apperception, the derivation 
of universally valid and general principles ; that in these 
cases the carrying out of a process of abstraction, such as 
the steps of system and method demand, will not be at- 
tempted ; and that the teacher will then limit himself to 
securing the intelligent comprehension of the concrete facts 
and their combination among themselves as well as with 
related concepts. 

But the more clearly conscious one becomes of the pre- 
suppositions and the limitations under which alone the 
application of the formal steps is allowable and useful, so 
much the more will one rid one's self of the notion that they 
are a mould in which Herbart and Ziller have attempted to 
mechanize the whole of instruction. 1 What do they do but 
give rule and order to the act of instruction in accordance 
with a universally recognized law of the human mind? Or 
is it not a fact that a thorough apperception of the material 
of instruction takes place only when instruction proceeds 
from the external or internal observation of the child, 
proceeds from this to abstract thought, in order, finally, to 
insure the right application of the results of such thought in 
practical exercises. Now this methodical procedure, which 
the nature of the human mind prescribes for us, is also the 
method of the formal steps. It proposes nothing more than 
to secure to the scholar a natural and thorough appropriation 
of the material of instruction. Where more or other than 

1 The most current expression which this preconception finds is the 
assertion that it is demanded that every recitation hour should he con- 
ducted according to the " scheme " of the formal steps. That was never, 
so far as we know, demanded hy Ziller or Herhart, and can very seldom 
take place, for the reason that the thorough appropriation of a unit of 
instruction demands, as a rule, more than one recitation hour. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 239 

that goes on under this rubric, it is the letter and not 
the spirit of the formal steps that rules. But it cannot be 
charged against the formal steps as a fault, that the theory 
prescribes a definite succession in the acts of instruction, or 
that it does not leave it to caprice to decide which of them 
precedes and which follows. The freedom of caprice is 
rightly an object of hatred in all spheres of human knowl- 
edge and volition; should it be allowed in Pedagogy, this 
youngest of the sciences ? Certainly not. For the rule was 
recognized even in earlier times for the safe guidance of the 
process of learning in more than one subject, as Dorpfeld 
has clearly shown: 1 From observation to thought, from 
thought to application ! And every capable teacher continues 
to hold fast to this succession of steps. According to this 
it appears that Ziller erred only in proposing five steps, 
(strictly speaking only four!) in place of the customary 
three. To follow those three is right and good; but to 
accept five steps, and those bearing some strange names, is 
inconsistent with the freedom of the teacher. Such is the 
objection that one hears. 2 If such is the case the whole 
contention regarding the "hateful" steps runs out, as it 
seems to us, in the case of most opponents, into an idle 
strife about words. It is hardly necessary to show that the 
five formal steps may be easily referred back to the familiar 
trinity of stages of learning. When Ziller, likewise prompted 
by a deeper insight into the process of mental appropriation, 
preferred to separate the act of observation and of abstract 
thought into two partial steps, it was simply with the purpose 
of offering to the teacher as definite and practically fruitful 
directions as was possible for the sure carrying out of the 
process of apperception in the child. He was not concerned 



1 Der didaktische Mater ialismus, p. 161 ff. 

2 Sherfig : Der Begriff der Bildung, 1885, p. 56. 



240 APPERCEPTION. 

with setting up an entirely new teaching process, but with 
rounding out old established rules and rendering them 
more comprehensive. It wa3 not that what was known 
to everyone was presented "only in slightly different 
words " ; but rather what was old was presented in a 
new, that is, an improved and enlarged form. But the 
original conception of the act of learning as a process of 
apperception is a new thing in the Herbart-Ziller theory; 
the arrangement of recognized measures of instruction in a 
strictly ordered series of steps of method, answering to the 
course of the process of learning, is new ; the introduction of 
analysis as a first step to the appropriation of the material of 
instruction is new ; and finally the founding of all these ped- 
agogic demands on a clear psychological insight is also new. 
To instruct according to the formal steps means, then, to 
do persistently and with conscious purpose what remained 
otherwise given over to a happy intuition. 1 



1 It is not seldom held by experienced practical teachers, against the 
elaboration of the culture-material according to the formal steps, that 
they demand too much time and do not permit the mastering of the task 
assigned. "We are far from entering a plea for a useless lingering upon 
unimportant matters, a wearisome prolixity in the introduction or the 
presentation of tbe subject, such as the spiritless imitation of the formal 
steps may often bring with it. We also purpose to secure to the children 
each hour the feeling of vigorous progress in the realm of mind. But 
when the over-pressure in the material for instruction assigned to each 
separate year of the course does not permit a thorough appropriation of 
the things taught, it certainly does not follow from that fact that the 
formal steps are unpractical. Much more is it advised in that case so to 
limit the things taught that they can be imparted in such manner as to 
mould the pupil's mind. Less would be more — that certainly holds 
good in the case of many of our courses of study. For in truth the 
teacher who advances slowly but thoroughly, goes further than one who 
is so anxious for the accomplishment of the task assigned that he cannot 
attain to a quiet, warm-hearted elaboration of tbe instruction-material. 

" The way of Order, even if it goes a crooked course, is no side-path." 
— Schiller's Piccolomini, I., 4. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 241 

We are at the end of our investigation. It undertook to 
present the evidence that all learning is, in the main, an 
apperception, and that, accordingly, it is the chief problem 
of the teacher regularly and surely to introduce the process 
of mental appropriation on the part of the scholar, and, as 
far as possible, to carry it through to the end. This demand 
extends, as we have seen, to nearly all spheres of instruc- 
tion; it involves the weightiest principles of didactics. 
Those universal imperatives, for example, in which one 
branch of the newer pedagogy is accustomed to formulate its 
theory — such sayings as ' ' from the known to the unknown," 
" from the near to the remote," " from the easy to the 
difficult," — may be referred back, as far as they contain 
truth, to the requirement, " Provide for easy and thorough 
apperception " ; and they are valid only to the degree in 
which they answer to this principle. 1 For the strong, apper- 
ceiving concepts of the child are solely and alone the known 
to which the unknown is to be united, the near with reference 
to the remote, the easy leading up to the more difficult. 
Whatever does not belong to these aids to apperception 
remains strange to the pupil, no matter how near it may be 
to him in time and space, or how simple and easy it may 
seem ; it cannot, in any way, promote the appropriation of 
the new. 

Accordingly, in seeking to derive the general didactic 
rules from one leading principle, and in setting forth the 
process of apperception as the content of the act of learning 
and the chief end and aim of the act of teaching, we believe 



1 Although attention has already heen called from the most diverse 
points of view — for example, even, by Diesterweg, to the fact that these 
sayings have only relative value, yet they still belong to those favorite 
pedagogic watchwords and half-true sayings that are most frequently 
used — and most often misunderstood. 



242 APPEKCEPTION. 

we are able to satisfy the demands of scientific pedagogy in 
a higher degree, and gain a deeper insight into the weightiest 
problems of method than if we set out to formulate a series 
of imperatives which mutually include one another and none 
of which can be separated in logical strictness from the 
other. 1 And as our theory so also can our pedagogic 
practice make a gain through such a peculiar conception of 
the problem of instruction. It is said : Every method is 
good which leads to the end, and the value of a process of 
instruction is measured simply by the knowledge and skill 
which the pupil is led by this means to acquire. This, 
however, is a false and one-sided conception. How often 
the outward success of a method is bought by a wholly 
unnecessary expenditure of time and strength ; how often all 
pleasure and joy in the subject of instruction is quite driven 
away from the child by a tedious process of teaching ! Such 
a " good" method, on which all his life long the scholar will 
look back only with discomfort, reaches the desired end only 
in appearance, while in reality it leads the pupil far astray ; 
for it robs him of living interest, that indispensable con- 
dition of further effort, without which any real, lasting 
success of instruction is out of the question. So the import- 
ant thing is not exclusively that something be appropriated, 
but how the appropriation takes place. Not every way that 

1 Compare, for example, the following nine principles of instruction, as 
Lindner (Allgemeine Unterrichtslehre, sixth edition, pp. 82-101) lays them 
down side hy side: Instruct naturally, psychologically, through observa- 
tion, in a manner to be easily comprehended, formatively, attractively, 
for lasting results, practically, and in the instruction lead the scholar on 
to self -activity. Die Schulerziehungszlehre of Schwarz and Curtmann 
in the eighth edition, edited by Freiensehner, even brings the number of 
such general principles of instruction up to twenty-four. Here one seeks 
in vain for the logical ground of division, the distinguishing characteris- 
tics, by which the ideas named may be clearly and sharply separated from 
one another. 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 243 

leads to the desired end is expedient, but only that one 
which attains the end by the easiest way, and that most 
suited to the nature of the scholar. Now, such an easy, 
level way we believe we have described in these pages. 
We indicated above how much apperception unloads the 
mind, and how much strength it saves the mind in conse- 
quence. In preparing with the utmost care for that process, 
in removing obstacles which would oppose themselves to any 
intimate blending of the subject and the object of the act of 
appropriation, in carrying out the process of apperception 
once begun to certain and full completion by a strictly 
methodical treatment of each unit of instruction, we un- 
doubtedly aid essentially in rendering the act of learning 
less difficult. We protect the individuality of the pupil in so 
far as we allow him by the aid of his own familiar concepts 
to comprehend what is new and unfamiliar. We promote 
his self-activity as often as we allow him to attain the pro- 
posed end either wholly or in part by ways of his own 
choosing ; we heighten the joy of learning by enlisting his 
own inmost thoughts and feelings in the instruction, and so 
insure the many-sided application of what is taught. We 
will not make apperception easy in the sense employed by 
the philanthropinists ; we do not advocate a kind of learning 
that is all play. Work itself becomes pleasure to the pupil 
as soon as he becomes acquainted with the aids to the 
mastery of new knowledge which slumber within him. But 
on this delight of learning we set the highest value ; for it 
conceals in itself the germ of true interest. What comes easy 
to the pupil, at the same time increasing his strength — that 
wins his heart, and continues for a long time, perhaps to the 
end of life, to be an object of his liveliest desire. Such 
delight ' ' is the heaven under which everything nourishes — ■ 
except poison." 



244 APPERCEPTION. 

And we strive after one thing more. When we, from 
principle, offer the pupil nothing new in instruction without 
having first called up old, familiar concepts within him, 
when we seek in the steps of association and application to 
establish a many-sided and intimate connection of what has 
been newly learned with the other spheres of thought, we 
plainly prevent the isolation and division of the separate 
thoughts and promote the formation of rich, well-united 
concept groups. But the richer a group is, the more fre- 
quently it offers occasion for calling it back into conscious- 
ness, and the more frequently it is repeated, the greater 
becomes the ease with which it returns. Further, in insisting 
on presenting the matter of instruction divided into sections 
of suitable length, and the regular alternation of learning 
and thinking, in prompting the pupil to rise from numerous 
particular concepts by means of comparison and abstraction 
to general notions, and with the help of these to master 
the concrete material of experience, we provide for the logical 
articulation and elaboration of the branches of his knowledge. 
But the richer, better articulated, and more easily repro- 
duced a concept group is, the greater is its power and 
the influence which it exercises on other groups, the better 
suited it appears to be to act in its turn as an apperceiving 
mass on new incoming concepts. So as the thought 
material is acquired, for the most part, by the way of 
apperception, it serves again at the same time to introduce 
new processes of assimilation ; the product of appercep- 
tion becomes a means of apperception. But this aptitude 
of the concepts and general notions for apperception is the 
best gift that the school can confer on the pupil for the 
journey through life. The problem of the school is not 
to be sought for in making the pupil ready for life, 
so that he should have nothing further to learn ; it can- 



ITS APPLICATION TO PEDAGOGY. 245 

not do that. Much rather can and will instruction prepare 
the scholar only to find his way with the help of what he has 
learned in the domains of knowledge, feeling, and volition, 
and to appropriate the new things which the school of life 
gives him to learn through old, familiar acquirements. If the 
pupil succeeds in this ; if he presses boldly on in the path 
of knowledge; if his aesthetic ideals, his religious principles, 
and ethical maxims prove so strong and lively that even 
under the most difficult circumstances he knows how to 
distinguish the beautiful from the common and ugly, the 
divine from the ungodly, the morally good from the bad, and 
even in complicated cases to find the right, then instruction 
has accomplished enough, and fairly contributed its part 
in the service of education to the formation of a morally 
vigorous character. 



PART III. 

HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEP- 
TION. 



The idea of apperception is not a result of modern psy- 
chology; it is no artificial expression invented for the 
purpose of giving well known pedagogical truisms a new, 
learned, philosophic garment. Far from it : it has a history 
of its own. A look into its historical development will not 
only dispel that prejudice, but essentially aid in the compre- 
hension of the theory of apperception. 

A. The Idea of Apperception with Leibnitz. 

The first who applied the idea of apperception in philoso- 
phy was Leibnitz. He arrived at it in his investigation of 
the nature and chief activities of the human soul. The latter 
is to him a simple, indivisible substance (monad) , whose 
life consists chiefly in continual change or transition from 
one perception to another. These perceptions, or inner 
conditions, it is true, reflect the outer world with its occur- 
rences, but they are caused by these neither directly nor 
indirectly; on the contrary, they are created freely and 
independently by the soul, according to its " inner prin- 
ciple" and from its own stores. They correspond, however, 
without exception to those outer occurrences because the 
omniscient Goo? has previously so arranged the order of the 



HISTOEY OF THE IDEA OF APPEKCEPTION. 247 

discursive conceptions and once for all so established 
them, that they are always in harmony with things external 
(Pre-established Harmony). Hence if the soul produces 
perceptions every moment, it does not follow that it has 
conceptions always equally valuable, that is, equally strong 
and distinct. There are innumerable perceptions of which 
we do not become conscious, because these impressions are 
either too insignificant, or too numerous, or even too uni- 
form. (We do not pay further attention for instance to the 
movements of a mill or a waterfall, if by habit they 
have become commonplace.) They are on the same level 
with perceptions formed during swoon, dizziness, stupor 
or dreamless sleep. These weak perceptions (whose efficacy 
must not be underrated, since all actions performed with- 
out deliberation, as well as habits and passions, depend 
upon them) lack distinct consciousness and remembrance. 
So long as we do not rise above them, our souls do not 
perceptibly differ from those simple monads that have only 
perceptions — like the plants and lower animals. 

But man has also stronger ideas, he produces perceptions 
of which he is distinctly conscious and which therefore are 
indelibly imprinted upon his memory. They may be de- 
signated in contradistinction to the weak perceptions as 
sensations (Leibnitz : ' ' sentiments " ) or apperceptions. They 
are the results of strong impressions, or of combination and 
accumulation of numerous weak perceptions which in them- 
selves were not apperceived. For of all our perceptions, 
even of the weak ones, none are lost, and the distinct ones 
arise gradually from perceptions too indistinct to be noticed. 
Every distinct idea comprises an infinite number of confused 
perceptions. These distinct perceptions coupled with memory 
do not belong to man exclusively ; the animal has them too, 
hence it is credited, like ourselves, with having a soul. 



248 APPERCEPTION. 

Man alone is able to reach a higher stage in the activity 
of conceiving, the step of reflexive cognition ; at this stage 
he not only grasps things external, by means of more per- 
fect perceptions, but he also comprehends their inner con- 
nection, " connaissance des causes"; he recognizes and un- 
derstands necessary and eternal truths, as we find them 
recorded in science, the divine plan according to which all 
things are arranged. And finally, while directing his atten- 
tion to occurrences taking place in his own soul, he rises to a 
recognition of his own self, to a conception of his ego, to 
self -consciousness. This conscious grasp of the content of 
thought Leibnitz designates in his later works by the term 
apperception in contradistinction to mere perception. It is 
the characteristic of rational souls or minds — (esprits) . 

From the foregoing it is seen that with Leibnitz the idea 
of apperception is inconstant. First, he gives it the signi- 
ficance of consciousness, or conscious distinct conceiving, 
following the common usage of language according to which 
" apercevoir " = to perceive, ' ' s'apercevoir " = to observe, 
or notice. Then again, he defines it as "la connaissance 
reflexive" a thinking, grasping of the contents of a concep- 
tion caused by arbitary attention, the reflective cognition of 
our inner states. It cannot be said that the one definition 
belongs exclusively to a former, the other to a later, period of 
his activity as an author. For although in his " Monad- 
ology " and his " Principles of Nature," the second definition 
is much more prominent, allusions to the former definition 
are by no means wanting, while on the other hand in his 
" New Essays" some remarks prepare the way for his later 
definition of the idea. 

While thus the philosopher's view concerning the true 
essence of apperception is left obscure, no doubt can be 
entertained about one important characteristic. According 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 249 

to Leibnitz the soul creates its conceptions not only out of 
itself and by its own means, but also independently of ex- 
ternal inducement or motive. Hence to apperception as a 
kind of conceiving may be assigned the characteristic of 
absolute spontaneity. This follows necessarily from his 
supposition of a pre-established harmony. However, in 
this Leibnitz did not consistently adhere to his original 
view. If the soul reflects the universe like a living mirror 
according to its level and point of view, if it be purely 
passive in perceiving, and if its acts of cognition are at 
least partly dependent upon the senses, in other words, 
dependent upon the nature of things external as well as 
upon the essence of the mind, then absolute spontaneity of 
its action of conceiving cannot be said to be in harmony 
with it. If we further consider that distinct ideas according 
to Leibnitz arise gradually from weaker ones, and that they, 
generally speaking, are called forth and created with the 
aid of preceding conditions in the soul, it follows that the 
activity of apperception is, to a certain degree, depend- 
ent on the contents of the soul already present. It takes 
place under the determining influence of those contents. 
Hence Leibnitz's views concerning apperception may be 
grouped as follows : 

(1.) By apperception we understand distinct, conscious 
conception coupled with remembrance, as well as thinking, 
reflexive comprehension of the contents of our own mental 
states, in fact, inner perception, or self-observation. 

(2). It exerts itself as spontaneous activity, dependent, 
however, upon the determining influence of the existing 
contents of the soul. 

The first of these two thoughts seems to have found 
general recognition even with philosophers who did not share 
his hypothesis of a pre-established harmony. Thus, for 



250 APPERCEPTION. 

instance, Christian Wolf (1678-1754) designated perception 
as observing an object, and apperception as becoming 
conscious of a perception. And Herder says, ' ' all sensations 
that rise to a certain distinctness become apperception, 
thought; the soul knows that it perceives." 

On the other hand, the spontaneity of apperception has 
been adhered to by Kant ; he emphasizes it as an essential 
characteristic of the idea. His theory of apperception, which 
occupies a prominent position in his system of philosophic 
criticism, may now enlist our attention. 

B. Kant's Theory of Apperception. 

In his memorable work "Critique of Pure Reason'* 
(1781), Kant places at the beginning of his investigations the 
question, " What are the sources of all human knowledge? " 
He finds that at first the senses (outer and inner) , by virtue 
of their receptivity for outer impressions derived from 
things, and from inner experiences of the emotions, offer the 
raw, formless material of cognitions. These, in themselves 
confused impressions and percepts are, with the aid of 
imagination, arranged by being fitted into forms of space 
and time already existing in the soul ; thus they are raised to 
sense-perceptions (Anschauungen) . But, in order that 
these may obtain the significance of objects, certain inborn, 
pure notions of the understanding are added, with which all 
sense-perceptions must agree, to form an inner connection 
between them. The perception and cognition of experiences 
acquired by means of sense-perceptions, through the pure no- 
tions of understanding, constitute, really, a judging, a con- 
necting of different pictures according to their contents, a com- 
bining of the (given) manifold in our cognition, a synthesis. 
The unity of this manifold is accomplished in thought in what 
he calls the categories. (Thus, for instance, we think the 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 251 

percepts of lightning and thunder necessarily together in 
the idea of cause and effect, causality being regarded as a 
category of the mind.) What these pure notions of the 
understanding are, that is, independent of all experience and 
free of all emotions, is seen from the functions of the 
active mind. There are as many pure notions of the under- 
standing, or categories, as there are kinds of judgments. 
Kant's table of categories, which places them under the 
higher units of quantity, quality, relation and modality, 
offers a complete list (See Watson's Selections from Kant, 
pp. 51-2). 

Hence, there are two sources of human knowledge : 
experience, which offers the material of sense-perception or 
percepts, and our self- active mind, which forms it into 
cognitions or ideas. Two faculties correspond with these 
sources : the faculty to receive sensations or percepts 
(receptivity of the senses), and the faculty to call forth 
ideas or concepts (spontaneity of the understanding) . Hence 
the outer and inner experiences are not the only sources of 
cognition, as Locke thought ; but previous to all impressions 
are, a priori, the pure conceptions of space and time, as well 
as the pure notions of the understanding, which we add to 
the experiences as something inborn, or native, to the mind. 

However, this presentation meets formidable difficulties. 
According to Kant, the categories perform the labor of 
connecting manifold phenomena into cognitions, thus, and 
only thus, making experiences possible. But if these 
notions of the understanding, a priori, exist previous to, 
and outside of all experience, if they are not created by it, 
and have nothing in common with it — how can they refer 
to it, and how can we say that they first make experience 
possible ? The answer is : all cognition rests, as we saw, 
upon the connection of the manifold into a necessary unity, 



252 



APPERCEPTION. 



that is to say, upon synthesis. The connection of the 
manifold can never occur through the senses, and can, there- 
fore, not be contained in the pure form of sense-perception. 
Experience, it is true, tells us that two percepts (like 
thunder and lightning) are acquired at the' same time, but 
that they should necessarily be thought as belonging together, 
it does not teach. Hence, synthesis is not given in the 
object of perception, but as accomplished by its subject ; it 
is the action of a spontaneous power of conceiving, i. e., of 
the understanding. The pure notions of the understanding 
are, i^ierefore, necessarily to be added to impressions or 
percepts from the outer world, because only with their aid 
is synthesis, that is, cognition, possible. 

But what is the final reason why the understanding 
recognizes in a judgment the unity of different notions? 
Why should I be obliged to think the manifold in experience 
necessary, for instance, in the relation of cause and effect? 
What makes possible and effects the connection of repre- 
sentations (ideas) according to the categories ? It is a fact, 
that all manifold of sense-perception has a necessary relation 
to the " I think" in the same subject in which this manifold 
is found. The manifold elements contained in one concept, I 
recognize wholly as mine. They are so, however, because 
they belong to one and the same self -consciousness. In so 
far as they all belong to one unchangeable ego, they consti- 
tute one idea. But herein lie the reason and the possibility 
of their necessary combination. Because I combine them 
in one self-consciousness, I recognize their inner connection, 
and I am conscious a priori of their unity, or their neces- 
sary synthesis. The relation of our concepts to one and the 
same ego, or self -consciousness (which is expressed in this, 
that the " I think" accompanies, or may accompany all my 
ideas and concepts) , makes possible a priori all synthesis, 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 253 

all thinking cognition of experience. However, we are not 
coerced by our experience, that is, by the matter of our 
impressions (percepts) to this reflexive connection ; on the 
contrary, it is an act of spontaneity, that is, of the soul's 
activity, wholly self-dependent, and independent of exterior 
influences. 

Spontaneous activity, then, which combines in self-con- 
sciousness the various impressions and ideas offered through 
the senses, is called "Apperception "* by Kant. It is also 
expressed as self -consciousness. 

Indeed, apperception, as characterized in the foregoing, is 
pure, original, transcendental; that is, it is that self -con- 
sciousness which accompanies, or may accompany, our ideas 
with "I think." It is designated as original, because it 
exists before all experience ; as pure and transcendental, 
because as spontaneous activity it does not depend upon the 
matter of our perceptions. Their unity is founded in this, 
that man recognizes all his ideas as his, that is, belonging to 
one and the same unchangeable subject (the pure ego) . Hence 
unity of original apperception is synonymous with conscious- 
ness of the synthesis of ideas or their elements. The under- 
standing is nothing else than the faculty to combine a priori, 
and to bring the manifold of given ideas under the unity of 
apperception.. 

From this, the fundamental importance of pure apper- 
ception for Kant's theory of cognition becomes plain. If 
the unity of different ideas is recognized in their relation to 
self-consciousness, that is, through the unity of apperception, 
the latter is the requisite of all judgment, of all cognitions. 
It not only connects ideas, but gives this connection the 
characteristic of necessity. 

1 See Watson's Selections from Kant, p. 65. 



254 APPEKCEPTION. 

Its pre-supposition is, as we saw, the notion of the pure 
ego, that self-consciousness which, according to Kant, does 
not develop gradually by means of and along with experience 
from without, but precedes it from the beginning, and ac- 
companies all of our ideas. He calls it the transcendental 
self-consciousness which lies beyond all outer experience, 
because the unity of original apperception tells us nothing 
about the nature of the pure ego. 

But, besides this transcendental, there is also an empirical 
self-consciousness ; besides the pure ego, an empirical ego to 
which also we refer our ideas. This latter, however, changes 
its content in the course of human life quite often, and is, 
on account of its changeableness, not able to produce an 
abiding identical self. In consequence of this, the relation 
of the concepts to the empirical consciousness, or the em- 
pirical apperception, cannot effect truly correct cognitions. 
It chiefly obeys the laws of association and hence forms only 
accidental, not necessary combinations of ideas. 

When a child, for instance, notices lightning and thunder 
as phenomena, one of which follows the other in time, without 
knowing the relation of cause and effect, it performs an act 
of empirical apperception. 

All differing empirical consciousness must, in order that I 
may attribute it to myself, be connected in a single self-con- 
sciousness. Hence all empirical consciousness has a necessary 
relation to a transcendental consciousness, namely, that of 
myself as the original apperception. Hence, also, the em- 
pirical apperception pre-supposes the other, and is derived 
from it. 

It is plain then, that Kant's idea of apperception unites all 
the characteristics which we found in Leibnitz's theory : — 
The logical connection of ideas, the thinking of general and 
necessary truths, the reflexive comprehension of our inner 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 255 

processes, their relation to our ego called forth by sponta- 
neous activity of the soul. But that which with Leibnitz 
was only hinted obscurely is here expressed very clearly. 
What were there considered parallel expressions of one and 
the same activity, are here combined to a strict logical unity. 
The thinking of necessary truths is not a form of appercep- 
tion differing from others, as, for instance, observation or per- 
ception, or relation of our concepts to self-consciousness, but 
it is the sequence of the latter. The idea of the pure ego is 
not considered the possible result, but the necessary pre- 
supposition of apperception. In this is found at the same 
time the chief difference between Kant's and Leibnitz's ideas. 
Leibnitz considers apperception the fruit of an extensive 
development of the soul. As distinct ideas are formed from 
unconscious impressions or perceptions, so from a combina- 
tion of strong ideas apperception will arise, and the self -con- 
sciousness thus gained lifts the soul to a rational being or 
spirit. Kant does not recognize such a development of our 
mental life. According to him, the pure ego, or self -con- 
sciousness, is the original possession of the soul and the 
transcendental apperception is that activity of the under- 
standing which proves active from the very beginning in 
perceiving and representing or conceiving objects. The 
ability to apperceive in this sense is not acquired gradually 
by mental labor, nor is it founded upon well-arranged contents 
of the soul, but is given previous to all experience from the 
outer world ; it alone makes possible the higher activities of 
the mind, thinking and cognition. 

C. The Idea of Apperception with Herbart. 

Herbart undertook a development of the theory of apper- 
ception in an essentially different direction. He, too, started 
from certain thoughts of Leibnitz. While Leibnitz thought 



256 APPERCEPTION. 

apperception to be a result of mental building-up of many 
weak perceptions into ideas, Herbart asks, in what manner 
weak impressions or ideas can be raised to a higher degree 
of consciousness. He consequently investigates the condi- 
tions of apperception as given in the contents of the soul 
already existing, in order to penetrate deeper into the nature 
of the process. And there he finds that ideas are apperceived 
(that is brought to greater lucidity) only when they them- 
selves become objects of a new act of perceiving, when other 
series of ideas notice them, so to speak, and combine them 
with themselves. He points this out at first in the appercep- 
tion of- outer sensation or impressions. In other words, it 
takes ideas to apperceive ideas. 

Every simple or complete perception (or sensation) which 
enters consciousness through the gates of the senses, acts 
upon the ideas present as a stimulus. It repels everything 
contrary to it that may be present in consciousness, and 
recalls all similar things, which now rise with all their con- 
nections. This complex perception (or sensation) invades 
several older groups or series simultaneously, and thus in- 
duces new conditions of fusion or arrest. While thus it causes 
a lively notion of the ideas, it may be compared with a light, 
casting its rays all around it. The stimulated mass of ideas 
raised simultaneously, resembles an arched vault extending 
in all directions from a centre. As long as this arching 
continues, the central perception has, by virtue of its stimu- 
lating power, the controlling influence in consciousness. 
But the more it checks all less similar ideas, that were called 
up as opposites, the more they recede, and allow older, quite 
similar ideas to rise, favored as they are, and gradually 
form the point of the arch ; this becomes the more raised or 
pointed the longer the entire process lasts. Now when a 
fusion of the new perception (sensation) takes place with 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 257 

tnose ideas reproduced anew, and standing high in con- 
sciousness, the latter assert or maintain superiority (controll- 
ing influence). For the ideas corning from within are, by 
virtue of their connections, stronger than the single new 
percept; especially since it diminishes in power after its 
stimulating effect is lost. The new perception must suffer, 
being placed in rank and file ; it is made an acquisition of the 
older series of ideas. 

The same relation, pre-supposed between sensations or 
percepts and older ideas, may be repeated between the 
weaker and stronger notions reproduced, or called np. A 
weaker series of ideas, one which is less deeply rooted with- 
in the entire horizon of thought, may be excited and de- 
veloped in its own way in the mind. Through it a related 
mass of thought is called back, i. e., one stronger and 
deeper-lying. At first the former, more excited series of 
ideas presses back the second series with reference to its 
opposing elements. This second series is thus brought to a 
tension and presses upward all the more powerfully. Now it 
shapes the first series in accordance with its own form, 
holding it, as it were, by its similar and fusing elements, 
repelling it at other points. Here we have an acquisition 
of ideas which may be designated, in contradistinction to 
outer, as inner apperception ; or, better, as apperception of 
inner perception. This is, with Herbart, as his examples 
prove, almost without exception, congruent with inner per- 
ception or self-observation. For he sees one of the chief 
objects of apperception in this, that it enables us to notice 
our own inner conditions, so that affections and passions 
may not surprise us, or lead us to hasty actions, but 
empower us to make a strict moral criticism of self. 

Hence it is necessary to know the conditions under which 
such apperception can take place securely and successfully. 



258 APPERCEPTION. 

Physiological checks and irritable temperament are not 
favorable to apperception. Perceptions which are to be ap- 
perceived must be neither too new, nor too strange ; neither 
too weak, nor too volatile. The new percept must be met 
by a sufficient number of apperceiving ideas, that is, such as 
offer enough points of contact with the new, and are sufficiently 
strong, and cross the threshold of consciousness at the 
proper time. Above all, the apperceiving notions cannot be 
raw, chaotic, or only loosely connected masses, but must be 
well perfected series of ideas. Especially the ideas ruling 
them, namely, judgments and maxims, possess a strong 
apperceiving power. The most general ideas are called 
categories by Herbart. He distinguishes categories of 
outer apperception, which serve in the acquisition of outer 
observation, and categories of inner apperception, with the 
aid of which we understand the states of our own soul, and 
those of others. The former categories refer to objects of 
the outer world, the latter to what happens in our own con- 
sciousness. The categories of outer apperception are the 
well known general notions of Kant ; those of the inner de- 
signate either feeling or knowledge, either volition or action. 
Speaking, especially conversation, exercises a prominent 
influence upon their development and application. In con- 
versation we are occupied with what is absent and past, not 
with observation or perception, but with ideas (the residuum 
or resultant of observations) . The burden of immediate, sen- 
suous presence is thereby removed, a burden which oppresses 
the animal continually. Conversation induces man to pre- 
serve inner states in his memory longer and to recall them 
oftener by occupying the mind with things past and absent. 
A consequence of this is, that the older ideas can enter into 
new combinations ; and it is through these combinations that 
they are turned into very much stronger powers. Speaking 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 259 

is labor. The entire thought to be expressed must constantly 
hover before the speaker, and appereeive to the speaker 
the different words with which the thought is to be clothed 
before they are uttered. When the speech is ended, the 
same happens with the series of words or sentences : — It 
is caught up, as it were, and apperceived by that mass of 
ideas to which it corresponds. Thus through conversation 
arises a systematic combination and fusion of notions to 
ruling ideas, which, as categories, act apperceivingly upon 
the objects of experience. The categories of inner apper- 
ception especially enable man to observe and distinguish 
what takes place in himself or others. While thus they 
bring about a consciousness of the inner world, they contri- 
bute essentially to the development of a purer and more dis- 
tinct concept of the ego. 

It is Herbart's merit to have defined the various processes 
in the act of apperceiving, and thus to have given the idea 
of apperception a greater distinctness. The supposition of 
Leibnitz, that apperception might be dependent upon condi- 
tions of the soul already existing, had not been noticed 
further by Kant ; since the subject of transcendental apper- 
ception, the pure ego, was to be taken as the emptiest of all 
concepts, the empirical contents of the soul were not con- 
sidered sufficiently in his theory. As Herbart took up again 
that thought of Leibnitz and searched for the conditions of 
apperception, he recognized and emphasized, first, the im- 
portance of that residue of ideas acquired in the course of 
life, that is, its importance for the acquisition of new impres- 
sions and experiences. Since Herbart's investigation, it is 
taken for a fact, that our outer and inner perceptions, without 
exception, take place with the assistance of older related ideas, 
the contents of which are determinative for the new perception. 
With that, the definition of apperception as a resultant of 



260 APPERCEPTION. 

gradual development of the mind is given. For if appercep- 
tion is absolutely dependent upon the nature of the store of 
ideas acquired ; if man apperceives correctly or incorrectly, 
superficially or thoroughly, in harmony with the contents and 
order of the series of ideas dominating his mind, the strength 
and the extent of his apperception grow with the increase and 
perfection of those groups of thought. It is entirely out of 
the question to consider spontaneous activity of the mind, i. 
e., actions independent of empirical contents and not being 
capable of development. Herbart refutes such an assumption 
directly: "Apperception, or inner perception, takes place 
only when the conditions allow it. There is no room what- 
ever for the lawless play of transcendental freedom." 

However, in his polemic against the supposition of an 
inborn faculty of apperception, he seems to overlook that the 
process of mental acquisition does not only set combinations 
of ideas into motion, but that to its successful termination 
certain emotional conditions and acts of volition must 
contribute. When, for instance, he speaks of ascending 
apperceived ideas as being guided or checked in their motions 
by more powerful masses of thought, it would seem more 
reasonable to attribute to volition this interference with the 
series of concepts. In active apperception, awakened by 
definite feelings that are coupled with the contents of con- 
cepts, volition calls up assistance which, without it, might 
come too late ; it accelerates the arching and pointing of the 
thought by narrowing the circle of ideas that have been 
preserved in consciousness. Without activity of emotion 
and volition no strong apperception seems to take place — a 
fact which may have given rise to the appearance of complete 
spontaneity of the process in the sense of Kant. 

Herbart's assertion, that apperception conforms exclusively 
to older concepts which are superior in strength to the new 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 261 

one, has found Opposition. Especially is it Staude, 1 who 
points out the precarious consequences of so narrow a view. 
It certainly was not Herbart who underrated the formative 
influences which at times, and under certain circumstances, a 
new perception may exercise upon older apperceiving groups 
of thought. When, for instance, he says that certain per- 
ceptions could cause a decomposition and new formation of 
ideas, or a correction of firmly rooted combinations of ideas ; 
when he emphasizes the importance of conversation for the 
systematic connection and solidification of ideas through 
apperception, we may take this as evidence of his not under- 
rating the importance of the apperceived ideas. This some- 
what narrow definition of the law of apperception seems 
to have its foundation in the confusion of two ideas. Her- 
bart, as a rule, does not distinguish, as we have seen, the ap- 
perception of inner perception from self -observation (the inner 
sense) . Such a confusion is the result of the double signifi- 
cance which has always been attributed to the idea of inner 
perception. We understand by that, as is well known, ob- 
jective representation of absent things or events by the aid 
of reproductive imagination, as well as perception of inner 

1 He says: "If this law alone were determinative, every human being 
would have acquired a finished and perfect development, and the question, 
how he arrived at this degree of perfection, would remain unanswered. 
For everything that may be offered to his soul by inner or outer per- 
ception would simply be fitted into the contents of the soul already 
existing, and become organically connected with it in that changed form, 
without being able to do more than merely strengthen these contents. 
But the intellectual education of man consists only to a small extent 
in confirming the finished contents of the soul already existing, and much 
more in providing it with new cognitions. Hence, in order to facilitate 
a real progress in man, the younger percept must, abandoning its 
exclusively passive role, be able to act upon the older ones ; and, at times 
an entirely (?) new concept must be able to spring up in the soul which 
previously could be found neither over nor under the threshold of con- 
sciousness" (Wundt's Philos. Studien, p. 166). 



262 APPEKCEPTION. 

conditions, i. e., self-observation. There, it is becoming 
conscious of the thing perceived ; here, of the act of perceiv- 
ing: there, it is a perceiving of facts of outer and inner ex- 
perience ; here, it is a perceiving of purely inner states. 
The activity of the one kind of inner perception can change 
to that of the other kind without difficulty. As Herbart 
directed his attention to the apperception of inner perception, 
that is, the acquisition of reproduced ideas, he seems to have 
been led unconsciously to the related theme of self-observa- 
tion by the empirical material offered. His examples of inner 
apperception have almost all reference to cases in which 
one's inner conditions or actions, affections, passions, outer 
conduct, etc., are subjected to self-judgment. A man ex- 
amines an idea with regard to its value, recognizes and 
governs himself in his affections, and measures his actions 
by the standard of his maxims ; while a child having no 
principles, or a poet in the condition of enthusiasm, cannot 
apperceive his thoughts and actions. In cases of mental ac- 
quisition, it is true, apperception and self -observation are 
always intertwined, since man through ethical ideas and 
judgments apperceives ideas which concern his own volition 
and action. Hence the erroneous supposition lies near, that 
things which are given simultaneously must also belong to- 
gether logically, i. e., that self-observation accompanies 
apperception not only in some cases, but always. But self- 
observation presupposes a strong superior mass of thought 
which comes to meet the new perception in order to assimilate 
it. From this Herbart derived the general fact, that inner 
apperception conforms to older, deeply-rooted concepts. 
He never asserted the same of outer apperception, and cer- 
tainly never intended to do so. 

Though after what has been said, it is clear that Herbart' s 
theory of apperception needs correction and completion in 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 263 

several points, on the other hand there can be no doubt that 
it is very well capable of such correction and perfection. 
A stronger emphasis upon the acts of emotion and volition in 
the process of apperception and their relation to the ego, for 
instance, might as little contradict its essence as a sharper 
distinction between the idea of intentional inner observation 
and that of apperception would. That which distinguishes 
advantageously Herbart's view from the views of Leibnitz 
and Kant, is its far-reaching applicability and practical 
importance in the field of empirical facts. More than one 
chapter of psychology has found a much desired lucidity 
through it ; namely, not only the lower processes of cognition 
"as they take place in common life," but also the higher 
mental activities are made clear by means of Herbart's 
views of apperception. 

Most psychologists of the Herbartian school have treated 
the problem of apperception in a similar manner. We 
mention only Drobisch, Schilling, Volkmann, Striimpell, 
Zimmermann, Lindner, Drbal. To Volkmann belongs the 
merit of having been the first who strictly separated the 
ideas of apperception and self -observation. The idea of 
apperception has since Herbart found the most fruitful ap- 
plication in pedagogics through Ziller. His explanation of 
' ' acquisitive attention " casts a brighter light over the condi- 
tions and course of the process of learning, and over 
didactic maxims resulting therefrom. 

A further development of Herbart's theory of apperception 
has been attempted by Lazarus and Steinthal, particularly 
from the standpoint of the philosophy of language. 

D. The Idea of Apperception with Lazarus. 

As in every material or mental activity, so in the process 
of apperception, two processes must be distinguished : that 



264 APPERCEPTION. 

of action and that of reaction. Every reaction is determined 
on the one side by the nature of the action upon which it reacts ; 
on the other side by nature itself, that is, by the original or 
acquired nature of the reacting being. Thus every percep- 
tion must be dependent upon the nature of the stimulating 
object, and upon the nature of the soul as a perceiving being. 
But the soul may react, yielding a sense-impression in two 
ways : first, according to (by virtue of) its original nature, 
then according to (by virtue of) the nature acquired by its 
previous activity. In the former case the result is a percep- 
tion ; in the latter, an apperception. Both are always found 
together in the process of perceiving ; they may be distin- 
guished as to content, but not as to time. Every perception 
is also an apperception, that is, a reaction of the soul, filled, 
more or less, with the contents of former processes. The 
soul, as a sensient being, perceives according to its original 
nature, while at the same time it apperceives according to the 
elements acquired through earlier actions. An apperception 
is not added to complete a perception, but perception is 
formed under the assisting and essentially determining 
influence of apperception. 

Hence, we complete, correct and sharpen the sensations, 
and add, in perceiving outer objects, by means of appercep- 
tion, what is not given through the senses. In delusions of 
the senses and in illusions we meet the secret activity of 
apperception. 

But apperception is of particular importance for the 
linguistic development of the individual as well as of entire 
nations. The creation of language took place with the 
continual assistance of apperception. At the beginning, 
man was without language, subject to the irritating impres- 
sions of the outer world, responding to them only with 
emotions. But the reactions* of his soul against the sensual 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 265 

impressions, especially when excitation of his feelings was 
coupled with them, increased to reflex-movements, that is, to 
sounds, which, then, were expressions of sense-perceptions 
that gave rise to emotions. In this process of sound- 
generation is expressed a tendency to equalize the force of 
impression by expression ; to relieve, as it were, the soul as 
well as the organism of the mass of impressions received. 
The sound expressed in consequence of an outer impression 
was perceived internally and united with the idea of the 
object perceived into a complex formation; that is, into a 
unity of impression and expression. When a sound created 
by the same man, or other men, repeatedly returned, it was 
understood and interpreted, that is to say, it awakened with 
the aid of a reproduction of sound a representation of the 
thing ; the sound became a linguistic utterance ; perception 
became apperception. 

Thus it happened that in the first or pathognomonic step of 
linguistic development with interjections or exclamations of 
emotion ; thus also in the second or onomato-poetic (name- 
creating) step with expressions of sound-imitation, that 
which man himself had put into these sounds at their 
creation, he now hears again and, apperceiving, recognizes. 

More clearly than in the creation of this so-called outer 
form of language is noticeable the activity of the acquired 
contents of the soul in another kind of language formation. 
When, for instance, the Greeks and Romans designated the 
ox (Rind) " fiovg" bos, they evidently meant to say "the 
boo-making " animal ; that is, they saw the whole animal in 
this single quality, in the tone of its voice. Among all the 
different kinds of sense-perception which combined to create 
the idea of that animal, this one is most prominent; its 
name therefore was transferred to the entire concept. Thus 
it came about that a word designates the whole thing, whose 



266 APPERCEPTION. 

name in reality expresses only one quality. Whenever the 
concept ox was connected with that word, apperception of a 
new sensation through an older, linguistically fixed one, took 
place. This one-sided relation to man of a many-sided 
object fixed by language, Lazarus calls the inner form of 
language. This inner form of language made itself felt 
most strongly in the third step of language formation, which 
may be called the characterizing step. At this step no new 
elements of language (word-roots and root-words) were 
generated, but men endeavored to make new forms with the 
store of words obtained, and to fit all new perceptions 
into older related groups and forms. Here the apperceiving 
strength of the existing store of language proved most 
effective and fruitful. In the same way in which, formerly, 
in entire nations the creation of language proceeded, the 
individual of to-day has to proceed in learning a language. 
Even the child of to-day has to create language like man in 
prehistoric ages, self- actively, according to the laws of 
apperception. 

The course of apperception naturally is dependent upon 
the nature of apperceived or apperceiving ideas and those 
accompanying them. The subject of apperception, especially, 
may consist of separate, simple, or complex ideas, as well as 
of forms of thought and contents of thought. The latter 
arise through solidification of concepts ; as, for instance, 
when the essential characteristics of numerous related objects 
are combined into one idea ; or the contents of an essay into 
a logical outline ; or the separate features, events and actions 
of a historical person in a brief but complete characteriza- 
tion. Ideas and laws, methods of thinking and working, 
maxims of action, rules of art, are, so to speak, the psychical 
organs, through which the individual thing that has reference 
to them is apperceived. 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 267 

- However, they act not only through their contents, but just 
as much through the accompanying conditions of the soul. 
Not only that takes hold of a new impression which, in a 
moment of mental acquisition, fills consciousness, but there 
are also unconscious elements active in the process of apper- 
ception which, with the contents of consciousness, form one 
group or series. This happens especially where, instead of 
the contents of a group of thoughts, only an idea representing 
it acts apperceivingly in consciousness. In the act of 
thinking, in art work, or inventing, the conscious action of 
the mind is constantly assisted and determined by reverber- 
ating unconscious ideas. Indeed, to the latter may even be 
credited the real creation, the thinking, finding, establishing. 
Only the intention of creating and the resolution to do so, on 
the one side, and the complete success on the other, become 
distinct in consciousness. The real process of apperception, 
or the creation of the new formations takes place uncon- 
sciously. 

Finally it must be remembered that, both for form and 
course of apperception, the feelings and tendencies which 
move the soul are of importance. Our wishes and cares, our 
affections and needs, our longings and desires, guide and 
determine our perception of things and events. In the 
grandest creations of the human mind, the soul's mood 
proves to be the most influential force for the direction and 
order of apperception. 

The idea of apperception has experienced an essential 
addition through Lazarus. With Herbart it was confined 
chiefly to such cases in which the acquisition of the new is 
preceded by excitation of the circle of thought, that is, a 
contemplative, lingering observation, an arching and pointing 
of concepts ; but more exact investigation showed that 
apperception can take place even without such intentional 



268 APPERCEPTION. 

guidance of the movements of ideas. Not only in the 
moment of continuous reflection and profound thought, but 
also in the seemingly simplest processes of intellectual life, 
we are apperceivingly active. Hence, generally speaking, 
apperception may be considered as a reaction of the soul 
(filled with contents) against outer and inner perception. 

In emphatically calling attention to the importance of 
unconscious ideas, as well as to that of feelings and af- 
fections, words and volition, for the process of appercep- 
tion, Lazarus offers a valuable addition to Herb art's view. 
For the forces that, in the act of app"erceiving, awaken and 
guide the masses of ideas are the secret powers of the 
emotional soul (Gemiith) ; to understand them means to 
recognize the deepest motives and causes of apperception. 

E. The Idea of Apperception with Steinthal. 

Every perception is a process performed between two 
psychical factors or elements. That which is first given is 
the primary stimulation of the mind, a weak, imperfect 
product, caused by sense-action; a product in which sub- 
jective and objective things are not yet separated, and which 
gives no cognition of the exterior object that caused the 
excitation. Hence it cannot be said to be either a sensation 
or a perception. A second more important element is com- 
bined with it, namely, a memory-image of the same, or a 
similar object of observation. This aids in interpreting and 
understanding the primary action of the soul, by being fused 
with it. An idea, or a group of ideas already in possession 
of the mind, apperceives the new impression. From the 
combination of both arises a product of cognition, perception. 

It is not the apperceptive group of ideas that brings a per- 
ception to consciousness, for either may, or may not, have 
the favor of consciousness. Apperception is not added to a 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 269 

perception, but the latter is the product of the former ; it is 
that which is perceived. 

As in the origin of the simplest perceptions, so in the for- 
mation and repetition of complex ideas, concepts and no- 
tions, and in the creation of the most ingenious idea, — ap- 
perception is active. In every case, however, it is the 
moving of two masses of perceptions toward each other for 
the purpose of generating a cognition ; it is the essence of 
spiritual processes upon which cognition is invariably based. 
It is supported invariably by elementary psychical processes ; 
but it includes them in special combinations. For instance, 
we have seen that it depends upon fusion; but the lat- 
ter idea does not by any means contain all the character- 
istics which we find in the idea of apperception. If, for 
instance, we recognize a beloved person, the sense-impres- 
sion is apperceived by a long chain of ideas, feelings and 
desires arising in the memory. It is thereby perfected and 
formed into a definite object. Recognition does not merely 
mean to be conscious that the person present is the one 
known or loved by us, but the entire condition of our mind 
at the moment of seeing the person again after a long 
absence is what we coldly call ' ' recognition." It is not 
a theoretical act, not merely cognition, which we exercise, 
but an action of life, a function of our being. Such apper- 
ception shows us that we are incapable of defining exactly 
in every case all the factors active in the process of apper- 
ception ; hence it follows, that to a certain degree the defini- 
tion of apperception must forever remain obscure. 

Of the masses of ideas which, for the purpose of genera- 
ting cognitions, move toward each other, the one may be 
called the subject, the other the object of apperception. A 
glance at the psychological relation existing between them 
may make the distinction clearer. 



270 APPERCEPTION. 

In most cases the subject of apperception consists of 
older ideas already existing, that is, the soul brings to the 
process of apperception an " a priori" element, which, as 
the active and more powerful agent, determines the direc- 
tion and success of the entire process. But what gives it 
this superiority over the newly acquired perception? It is 
its strong sensibility, the faculty of returning to conscious- 
ness easily, and forming new connections with other ideas. 
Such sensibility and mobility are, as a rule, qualities of 
rich, well- articulated groups that are reproduced regularly, 
series of concepts which, for instance, refer to one's profes- 
sion, one's mode of life, one's every-day occupation. Every 
person has one or more such groups that exercise an espe* 
cially strong power of apperception and which, therefore, 
are called the " ruling ideas." 

However, their efficiency is not exclusive : we apperceive 
often enough with weaker or even with the weakest ideas, if 
they are most congruent with the impression received. We 
may therefore say in general : That group always apper- 
ceives which, either absolutely or only for the special case, 
proves the most powerful. A chief condition of the rela- 
tive power of the ideas is interest, that is, the readiness 
of a group of ideas for apperceiving activity, which readi- 
ness depends upon the pleasure, felt or expected, in the 
application of its power. Interest awakens attention, that 
is, willingness causes readiness for mental acquisition. 
But it should not be left unnoticed that unconscious, sym- 
pathetic ideas, as well as moods which govern the mind at 
the moment, may aid a group of ideas in its apperceiving 
power. 

If thus in general the " a priori" element is felt to be 
the stronger in apperception, in certain cases it may be that 
a new impression itself transforms and enriches our apper- 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 271 

ceiving groups during the process of apperception. Hence, 
under certain conditions the object of apperception may 
be the more powerful element which determines both direc- 
tion and result of mental acquisition. 

Like the psychological relation of the two factors, so the 
logical relation may be reviewed. The following kinds of 
apperception may be distinguished. 

1. If object and subject of apperception are perfectly 
alike, that is, if the impression corresponds to a picture in 
the memory, both will be fused, not only with reference to 
the cognition, but also with reference to the conditions of 
the mind under which the process takes place. This is iden- 
tifying apperception. 

2. While at times individual things are apperceived by 
individual ideas, at other times the individual is acquired 
by the general, the idea of a single being by the idea of 
the species, the idea of the species by the class, order, and so 
on. This classifying or subsuming apperception embraces 
all classifying and arranging, all proving and inferring, all 
aesthetic and ethical judgment. 

3. Often a definite fact may be classified among certain 
ideas when one is incapable of harmonizing it with related 
groups of thoughts that are the seat of lively emotions and 
desires. When, for instance, a person dies whom we have 
loved, we understand the event well enough; but we cannot 
reconcile ourselves with it, cannot bring it into harmony 
with the condition of the soul ; that is, we cannot apperceive 
it. When at last an adjustment takes place between the 
opposing groups of ideas, it is not a case of subordination 
or superiority, but a case of co-ordination of ideas, that is, the 
proper relation is found between co-ordinate ideas or such 
as belong to different classes. This is the object of harmo- 
nizing apperception. 



272 APPERCEPTION. 

4. The creative or formative apperception, finally, is 
found in all those combinations on which the progress of 
science is based, in the creations of our poets and artists, in 
the thinking process of induction and deduction, in the 
guessing of riddles, but also in illusions and hallucinations. 
There is one circumstance which is peculiarly its own, 
namely, that in every case it first creates the apperceiving 
factor. 

Steinthal, like Lazarus, endeavored to give the idea of 
apperception a new setting. But while placing all activity 
of the discerning soul under the spacious roof of his formula, 
he includes psychological processes in it which ought not to 
be placed at par with the peculiar action of mental acquisi- 
tion, although they, like apperception, serve in effecting 
cognition. On the other hand, one misses in his definition 
certain characteristics which he himself attributes to apper- 
ception as essentials : namely, that apperception is more 
than a mere fusion of ideas with ideas or of percepts with 
concepts, and that in the motion of masses of ideas lively 
emotions and affections participate, are not stated in the 
definition ; it leaves us also in the dark as to how the masses 
of ideas moving to meet each other go about generating 
cognition. Evidently, then, the widening of the idea of 
apperception has injured its distinctness and clearness. 

F. Apperception Defined by Modern Non-Herbartian 
Psychologists. 

In the works of modern psychologists outside the Herbar- 
tian school we meet the term "apperception"' but rarely. 
But the process designated by the term is not unknown 
to them. Following Herbart, almost unanimously they 
take it to be a fusion of similar ideas. Thus Beneke's 
4 'traces" are what remain of psychical processes that 



HISTOKY OF THE IDEA OF APPEKCEPTION. 273 

have vanished from consciousness, and these traces serve in 
securing the acquisition of new perceptions. 

In a similar manner Theo. Waitz speaks of "residua," 
remainders, or after-effects, of perceptions in the mind, 
4< by which all subsequent conditions of the mind are modi- 
fied. " In earliest childhood it is, as he thinks, a general 
feeling, that is, "a confused mass caused by simultaneous- 
ness of different impressions, which apperceives all separate 
specific sense impressions." In later years "no pure and 
isolated perception can take place, because the mind is 
always preoccupied by a great number of remainders of 
previous processes," with which the new perception has " to 
make terms." 

Dittes defines apperception as a sense-action or percep- 
tion, which arises through the addition of formations already 
existing in the mind to new impressions or perceptions. 

Erdmann distinguishes also perception and apperception, 
in so far as he calls the " acquisitive perceiving " Anschauen, 
in contradistinction to mere seeing, or perceiving. That 
which is totally strange is only an object ; this is perceived, 
not " angescliaut." In an " Anschauung" however, that 
which is objectively perceived contains contributions from 
the mind itself. 

Imm. Herm. Fichte distinguishes three factors in the 
process of perception: (1) sensation, (2) distinguishing 
and combining of sensations, and (3) their recognition. 
In this last named action, by which " a single perception is 
put into relation to a common picture already existing, and 
thus recognized," we find apperception again. It is that 
action which fits individual percepts into related groups of 
concepts. 

According to Lotze, there are conscious sensations the 
contents of which are lost in the hasty change of the mind's 



274 APPERCEPTION. 

states, because no definite concept of our own life comes to 
meet it with which it might associate, and in whose boun- 
daries it might unalterably take its proper place. Such a 
sensation is a perception, in contradistinction to apperception, 
by means of which we become conscious of sense-action. 
1 ' We apperceive those impressions which we bring into com- 
prehensible connection with our empirical ego, and whose 
relation to former events, as well as their value for the 
further development of our personality, we feel and treasure 
up for subsequent remembrance." The extent and com- 
pleteness which the idea of self possesses every moment in 
the course of our thoughts, determines the indefinite variety 
of degrees of perfection with which a perception is received 
in consciousness, i. e., with which it is apperceived. " For 
the concept of the ego that comes to meet it is not every- 
where the same ; often poor and without content it combines 
the new impression with but few, and perhaps, indifferent 
features of our own being ; the impression is not recognized 
in the intellectual value it possesses for the entirety of our 
life. The most significant perceptions are often lost in con- 
sequence of the condition of our temperament at the moment, 
while at other times their importance is instantly noticed. 
If this variability of perception were confined to the theo- 
retical contents of the impressions, a later reproduction 
under more favorable circumstances might adjust the want 
in the first impression; but this variability becomes fatal, 
inasmuch as it is extended over resolutions and actions 
{Medical Psychology, p. 504). 

From Leibnitz's thought, as we have seen, two trends have 
issued in the history of the idea of apperception. The view 
represented by Kant considers the process of apperception 
as the expression of an inborn spontaneous activity, while 
the Herbartian school emphasizes more the effects of accumu- 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 275 

lated contents of the soul, acquired during the course of 
mental development. While the latter school of philosophers 
is particularly engaged in extending and applying the idea of 
apperception, Kant's attempt to base all apperception upon 
/pure self-consciousness remained isolated. Only in recent 
years the thought of a spontaneous activity of apperception 

— with the omission of Kant's metaphysical presuppositions 

— has been taken up again and developed into an indepen- 
dent theory of apperception. The last chapter of our his- 
tory shall be devoted to it. 

G. Wundfs Theory of Apperception. 

The ideas which at a given moment exist in consciousness 
differ with regard to their distinctness. The majority of 
them, less distinct, recede behind ideas, or conceiving ele- 
ments, that are distinguished by special clearness. This 
fact has been compared with the similar phenomenon which 
is observed in the act of seeing. The pictures of outer ob- 
jects which are formed on the retina are most distinct at the 
point called the focus ; their clearness diminishes more and 
more, the farther away they are from that point. Now 
taking consciousness, figuratively speaking, as an inner see- 
ing, it may be said that all concepts present at one moment 
are within the field of vision (Blickfeld) of consciousness, 
while only one is in the focus (BlickpunM) of consciousness. 
The entrance of an image into the field of vision is defined 
as perception; its entrance into the focus of vision as ap- 
perception. 

Hence, apperception is shown in the high degree of clear- 
ness acquired by a concept or image ; but at the same time 
a definite psychical action which causes this result is neces- 
sary : namely, this — the image, being present with others in 
consciousness as a percept, is seized upon and brought to 



276 APPEECEPTION. 

greater clearness by attention. Bnt attention is nothing 
else than an act of the will. For the will must be denned 
as a conceiving activity in consciousness, which activity in 
the course of our inner states acts determinatively, and calls 
forth corresponding outer movements. Hence, apperception 
is an act of volition, a determination of the will upon the 
ideas. No apperception without activity of the will ! And 
it is always the one will which is expressed in all forms of 
apperception. "Apperception is the activity of our will in 
the realm of our ideas, and only in this activity do we our- 
selves feel the unity of our volition." Therefore Wundt 
thinks, with Leibnitz and Kant, that apperception is the 
foundation of our self -consciousness. 

It is plain, then, that so fundamental a psychical function 
must exercise a far-reaching control in the realm of thought. 
Without apperception our concepts would resemble scattered 
members wanting a unifying element ; they would be in- 
capable of entering into association with one another. For 
it is an erroneous supposition that percepts and concepts 
are combined by means of their contents, or their inner and 
outer relations. That which combines them is apperception. 
Indeed, apperception raises them to the rank of inner func- 
tions. Apperception is felt directly as an inner activity 
" from which we transfer the character of inner actions 
upon the contents of that which is apperceived. The ideas 
themselves appear to us as inner actions, although we re- 
main conscious of the fact that this character can be attrib- 
uted only to their apperception." With reference to this 
fact Wundt calls apperception briefly "conceiving activity." 
It is, therefore, both an action of production (conception) 
and volition (since, according to Wundt, feeling is to be 
traced back to volition), or the sum and substance of an 
inner activity. So long as apperception is active in the 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 277 

field of associative combinations of ideas, so long as it con- 
tributes to the formation of elementary mental structures, 
i. e., complexions and complications, groups and series of 
ideas, its character as an action of volition does not appear. 
Here, ideas are apperceivingly combined without one's be- 
coming conscious of the assistance of the will. Wundt at- 
tributes this to the fact that here the will is determined 
univocally (eindeutig) by perceptions entering conscious- 
ness, that is to say, one perception is so distinguished by 
intensity, or its emotional tone, that apperception of others 
is quite out of the question. Hence, we think that we are 
guided by outer influences, or by our reproductions and not 
by our will. We have here a form of apperception which 
we may call passive apperception. 

It is different in that action of apperception which on the 
basis of associative combination of concepts proceeds to the 
formation of ideas, judgments and conclusions. This action 
moves chiefly in the regions of thought and imagination. 
Here, apperception is not guided univocally by ideas that 
are raised by association, but several ideas are at its dis- 
posal among which it can choose. And "it chooses the 
proper ones by means of an activity which is determined 
causally by the entire historical development of conscious- 
ness." In this action we become distinctly conscious of 
apperception as an inner action, or will. It is therefore 
called active apperception. 

"We become conscious of the process of apperception 
chiefly through the sensation of tension which accompanies 
it, especially in a case of reflection, or a case of expecta- 
tion. This leads us to the physiological processes connected 
with it. According to the thorough and most interesting 
investigations of Wundt, the following physiological func- 



278 APPEECEPTION. 

tions are to be distinguished in the apperception of an ex- 
pected sense-impression : — 

1. Transmission of the sensory excitation from the 
sense-organ to the brain. 

2. Excitation of the sensory centers (at the moment of 
psychical reaction, entrance of the sensation into the field of 
vision of consciousness = perception) . 

3. Transmission of the sensory excitation to the apper- 
ception centers, i. e., the fore part of the cerebrum; return 
of the excitation to the sensory-centers whereby a strength- 
ening of the percept is caused, and to the region of volun- 
tary muscles whereby a tension of certain muscles is occa- 
sioned (entrance of the percept into the focus of conscious- 
ness = apperception). 

It is particularly this tension of muscles which in cases of 
intense apperception causes a feeling of exertion. When 
paying attention to outer sense-impressions a tension is no- 
ticed in the respective sense-organ (eye, ear) . While trying 
to recollect certain memory-images, this feeling of tension 
recedes to those parts of the head surrounding the brain. 
In both cases it is a feeling of inervation of the muscles 
caused by a real tension, and is therefore accompanied by 
sensations of touch. 

The theory of Wundt, sketched in the foregoing lines, ex- 
pressly claims the merit of having proved the spontaneity of 
apperception, and having in opposition to Herbart, empha- 
sized it anew. It connects with a thought of Leibnitz's and 
Kant's theory without clinging to it in its crude form. For 
while Leibnitz's "soul-monad" creates "sua sponte ,> its 
ideas independently of events and phenomena of the outer 
world ; and while Kant's activity of apperception is only in- 
duced by outer and inner experience, but not determined in 
its contents, Wundt shows that the will appears in the pro- 



HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF APPERCEPTION. 279 

cess jof apperception in accordance with certain motives 
which determine its direction. He therefore asserts no ab- 
solute, but merely a relative spontaneity of the will. At 
any rate, all apperception is traced back to its spontaneous 
activity. Numerous facts seem to speak in favor of this 
supposition. In all cases where mental acquisition takes 
place only after surmounting special difficulties — since a 
thinking, lingering reflection and a wavering between dif- 
ferent series of reproduction precede it — there the action of 
the will regulating, as it were, the course of perceptions, can 
be demonstrated. And the farther the intellectual develop- 
ment of man progresses, the more important becomes the 
function of those apperceptions that are brought about by 
the assistance, and under the guidance, of the will. 



Heath's Pedagogical Library. 



I. Compayre'S History Of Pedagogy. " The best and most comprehensive his- 
tory of education in English." — Dr. G. S. Hall. $1.75. 
II. Compayre'S Lectures on Teaching. "The best book in existence on theory 
and practice." — Pres. MacAlistek, Drexel Institute. $1.75. 

III. Compayre'S Psychology Applied to Education. 90 cents. 

IV. Rousseau's Emile. "Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the 

subject of education."— R. H. Quick. Cloth, go cents ; paper, 25 cents. 
V. Peabody's Lectures to Kindergartners. Illustrated. $1.00. 
VI. Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude. Cloth, 90 cents; paper, 25 cents. 
•.VII. Radestock's Habit in Education. 75 cents. 

VIII. Rosmini's Method in Education. "The most important pedagogical work 
ever written." — Thomas Davidson. #1.50. 
IX. Hall's Bibliography of Education. Covers every department. #1.50. 
X. Gill's Systems of Education. $1.25. 

XI. De Garmo's Essentials of Method. A practical exposition of methods with 
illustrative outlines of common school studies. 65 cents. 
XII. Malleson's Early Training of Children. Cloth, 75 cents ; paper, 25 cents. 
XIII.' Hall's Methods of Teaching History. $1.50. 
XIV. Newsholme's School Hygiene. Cloth, 75 cents ; paper, 25 cents. 
XV. De Garmo'S Lindner's Psychology. The best manual ever prepared from 

the Herbartian standpoint. $1.00. 
XVI. Lange'S Apperception. The most popular monograph on psychology and 
pedagogy that has yet appeared. $1.00. 
XVII. Methods of Teaching Modern Languages. 90 cents. 

XVIII. Felkin's Herbart's Introduction to the Science and Practice of Education. 
With an introduction by Oscar Browning. #1.00. 
XIX. Herbart's Science of Education. Includes a translation of the AUgemeine 
Pddagogik . $ 1 . 00. 

XX. Herford's Student's Proebel. 75 cents. 

XXI. Marwedel's Conscious Motherhood. $2.00. 

XXII. Tracy's Psychology of Childhood. New and enlarged edition. 90 cents. 

XXIII. Ufer's Introduction to the Pedagogy of Herbart. 90 cents. 

XXIV. Munroe's Educational Ideal. A brief history of education. $1.00. 

XXV. Lukens's The Connection Between Thought and Memory. Based on 

Dorpfeld's Denken und Geddchtnis. $1.00. 
. XXVI. English in American Universities. (Payne). 75 cents. 
XXVII. Comenius's The School of Infancy. (Monroe). $1.00. 
XXVIII. Russell's Child Observations. Imitation and Allied Activities. #1.50. 
XXIX. Lefevre's Number and its Algebra. $1.25. 

XXX. Sheldon-Barnes's Studies in Historical Method. Method as determined 

by the nature of history and the aim of its study, go cents. 

XXXI. Adams's The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education. A series of es- 

says in touch with present needs. $1.00. 
XXXII. Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster. $1.25. 
XXXIII. Thompson's Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster. $1.25. 
XXXIV. Hollis's The Oswego Movement. $1.00. 
XXXV. Scott's Organic Education. A manual for teachers. $1.25. 
XXXVI. Kant on Education. Translation of Kant's Ueber Pddagogik. 
XXXVII. Laing's Manual of Reading. A study of psychology and method. 
Burrage and Bailey's School Sanitation and Decoration. $1.50. 
Scott's Nature Study and the Child. #1.50. 

Sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. 
Special catalogue, with full descriptions, free on request. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston,New York,Chicago 



75 cents. 
75 cents. 



FEB 5 1904 




021 762 690 



BaT 



